NEWLY-PROMOTED Premier Soccer League (PSL) club ZPC Kariba’s dance with top-flight football is in jeopardy as the club had not furnished the league with registration documents by the February 28 deadline, Southern Eye Sport can reveal.
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ZPC Kariba gained promotion into the PSL after they won the 2013 Zifa Northern Region Division One League.
However, with just two weeks left before the league’s kickoff it has emerged that their participation in the top-flight is in doubt as the Kariba-based team has not even submitted player contracts to the PSL.
They are yet to pay affiliation fees for participation in the 2014 season in the country’s elite football league.
ZPC Kariba are the only club that has failed to comply with the PSL directive for the February 28 provisional deadline for submission of papers with the PSL.
They also did not vote and were not present for the PSL elections that were held in Harare last Sunday.
Club chairman Munyaradzi Nduna on Monday admitted that the club had neither supplied the PSL with their registration documents nor paid their affiliation fees.
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He, however, referred questions to Fadzai Chisveto of ZPC’s public relations department in Harare.
“Talk to Fadzai Chisveto in Harare. She is the one who can respond to questions regarding that,” Nduna said.
On Monday, Chisveto asked this reporter to send questions via e-mail which had not been responded to by yesterday and efforts to get a comment from her were fruitless.
A woman who answered ZPC’s landline in Harare said she was not getting any response from her office.
PSL chief executive officer Kennedy Ndebele confirmed that they had not received anything from ZPC Kariba, save for the list of executive committee members of the club.
Ndebele said his office had since sent correspondence to ZPC Kariba as they were concerned by the situation.
“ZPC Kariba has not affiliated and they have not supplied us with registration documents and player contracts as of the February 28 deadline. All other teams have registered and we are clear on them. We are only returning documents for correction. As a league, we are worried that ZPC Kariba as a new club have not supplied us with any registration documents. We have since written to them on the matter,” Ndebele said.
By March 26, formalisation of all documentation by the PSL clubs that includes the submission of contracts between the clubs and the players, manual registration of players, central registration with Zifa should have been done before the league starts.
ZPC Kariba have only advised the PSL that they will play their home matches at Gwanzura Stadium in Harare until the completion of refurbishments at their stadium in the resort town.
The club has enlisted the services of former Buffaloes coach Saul Chaminuka to take them through the PSL, assisted by Godfrey Tamirepi.
Tembo Chuma, former Highlanders goalkeepers’ coach, will be in charge of the goalkeepers while Partson Ndabambi will be the team manager.
