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Petros Kausiyo Deputy Sports Editor
PREMIER Soccer League chairman Farai Jere has implored all clubs to uphold integrity and respect the statutes governing the top-flight body if their brand is to retain corporate partners.

Jere made the remarks while addressing leaders of four newly-promoted clubs — Manica Diamonds, Mushowani, Hwange and TelOne — in Harare yesterday.

He was also reacting to the unfolding bribery scandal that has rocked ZPC Kariba.

The PSL boss said his management were concerned with the “negative impact’’ that the allegations levelled against ZPC Kariba coach Godfrey Tamirepi and some of the club executives could have on the top-flight body.

“We don’t want to scare sponsors, like the story coming out in the papers, which is still an allegation. We need to show the whole world that we have integrity. It is not good for the league to have chairpersons or any other officials involved in inflating signing-on fees. If it comes out to be true, the brand of the PSL will suffer. We are not going to tolerate that and we will have to nip it in the bud,’’ said Jere.

The CAPS United president also told the club administrators to study the PSL constitution and abide by the rules and regulations of the league.

“I am happy that our league is progressing very well and players are moving to clubs of their choice and every club seems to be preparing very well, so we should have an exciting season ahead,’’ he said.

“But let’s all uphold the spirit of Fair Play. We need issues of integrity and once we abide by that, we avoid unnecessary squabbles.

“Most of the squabbles we had in the past were because people did not understand the league’s constitution or even read tournament rules and regulations because each tournament has its own rules and regulations.’’

PSL chief executive Kenny Ndebele also took time to explain to the newboys the league’s requirement that five of the players to be registered by each club need to be juniors.