Relegated Wanderers hint at court action
The PSL Board of Governors (BoG) will need the wisdom of Solomon to sort out the relegation problem facing the league when they meet at their Parktown headquarters on Tuesday.
At the heart of their problem is relegated African Wanderers, who are fighting against dropping to the lower division after arbitrator Dave Beasley ruled in their favour last week, claiming the BoG was not legally constituted.
Wanderers claim, together with Bloemfontein Celtic, that they cannot be relegated in terms of Beasley's ruling and that the PSL must find a way of accommodating them - including possibly making the PSL a 20-team league next season.
This is the dilemma facing the PSL, who are aware that Beasley was right after punching holes in their constitution, but they will face a fixture headache if they agree to a 20-team league in view of Bafana Bafana's qualification for the African Nations Cup and the World Cup finals next year.
Beasley ruled that the BoG was improperly constituted and, as a result, cannot amend the constitution, this after Wanderers discovered that the BoG was supposed to have been elected at an annual general meeting the previous year.
The amendments resulted in the relegation of Wanderers and Celtic at the end of last season.
However, due to the fact that the BoG did not meet for the last two years, Beasley ruled that they did not have the powers to amend the constitution and Wanderers capitalised on this technicality in a bid to avoid relegation.
Wanderers chairperson Alfred Ndlovu said the PSL constitution stated clearly that an arbitrator's ruling shall be final and binding and that the league has to abide by Beasley's ruling and include them in the PSL next season.
"The English FA runs a successful 20-team league, so what is preventing the PSL from doing the same?" asked Ndlovu, who added, rather menacingly, that he was prepared to take the BoG to court should it fail to do so.