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Sports Reporter
FARAI JERE and Lovemore Matikinyidze go head-to-head tomorrow in a boardroom battle that will see the Premier Soccer League, who have been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons of late, getting a new substantive leader.

The country’s top-flight league have not had a substantive leader since Peter Dube was suspended by ZIFA two years ago and an emergency committee, in which Matikinyidze was one of three members, has been in charge of its affairs.

Chicken Inn chairman Lifa Ncube is the other member of that emergency committee while former Dynamos president, Kenny Mubaiwa, occupied one of the posts before he quit as the boss of the Glamour Boys in June.

Jere has been campaigning throughout the country, trying to sell his vision to the clubs, while Matikinyidze said he already has a profile, which the clubs understand, and he doesn’t need to go on a campaign.

The Triangle United chairman has the backing of the PSL secretariat, especially after he was part of the emergency committee that handed league chief executive Kenny Ndebele a fresh three-year contract, and there has been a lot of behind-the-scenes campaigning by members of the secretariat who want him to land the post.

They believe Matikinyidze will not rock the boat, given that he has been part of the league’s leadership in the past two years, while they fear Jere – who has promised to change the way the league is being run – appears to the secretariat as someone who could shake their establishment.

Jere met with Delta marketing director Maxen Karombo in Harare on Wednesday to assure him that, should he win the poll tomorrow, the special partnership between the league and their biggest sponsors would not be compromised in any way.

The PSL have been in the headlines, for all the wrong reasons, in recent weeks after revelations that they have been paying a fortune towards the renting of a property, in Harare, which they have been using as their headquarters for a number of years.

It also emerged that the league’s leaders rejected a proposal to buy a house in Harare which was costing $280 000, and which needed an extra $20 000 for a facelift, after receiving $400 000 from SuperSport when the company was their broadcast partners.

The perks, in terms of allowances, which the leaders of the emergency committee have been receiving has also come under the spotlight after it was also revealed that Ncube, who is in charge of the finance portfolio, wrote a memo to his colleagues warning that the payments could provoke a fierce public backlash.