PSL Must Enforce Club Licensing Rules

By Newsday Reporter - KWEKWE United could not honor their Castle Lager Premier Soccer League home match against Herentals scheduled for Monday at Bata Stadium.

A Press release on late Monday issued by the Premier Soccer League said the game could not proceed and was expecting to receive a report to determine the way forward.

What is likely to be done is award Herentals three points.

That is the best punishment for a cash-strapped team that has just been promoted?

The issue has been the focus of football talk.

Others suggested banning Kwekwe United from the league.

We can't agree with such a move.

The league looks amateurish when a team fails to report for its home match.

We can't run a national top-flight league like a boozers league.

The club should have sorted out their house long before it was promoted to the top league.

Or it could have auctioned off the franchise to the willing investors in playing the football game on being promoted to the top league. If everything else failed, it could have backed out prior to the start of the season.

The teams should not be receiving points on a silver platter.

The club licensing laws should be employed by the law enforcers to put every team to test that it possesses the financial capabilities to participate in the league without fear or favor.

The Kwekwe United fiasco put us in mind of the argument we had a fortnight ago that we should have one division one soccer league.

In that way, such a dilemma could have been averted.

Due to non-adherence to club licensing laws, so many problems are coming up. 

It will be great if Kwekwe United resolve their problems and play out their game this week, so that the other teams will not end up feeling hard done after Herentals collect three with no effort at all?

It is, of course, not Herentals' fault, but Kwekwe United cannot be allowed to hand out points at will and play when they feel like.

Telltale signs manifested themselves when the players refused to train prior to leaving for Kariba and reported for duty at the match venue in groups.

That is when the club authorities should have reacted or done the dignified thing — withdraw from the league.

We can only hope that the authorities learned their lesson from this and will, in the future, conduct checks on clubs to determine whether they have the mettle to play in the premier league.

Kwekwe United shortchanged fans who wanted to watch their match against Herentals, which is not a good sign for a team that had just been promoted to the premier league.

Are we paying respect to the league sponsor when games are not honoured, not due to the weather, but due to the fact that a team has not turned up — at home, I might add? NewsDay