Revisit soft points rule

Dennis Keagile | Friday June 12, 2015 16:47

I am not sure what it is that convinced the other clubs to vote him as chairperson. What I will remember him most is when he made that chilling statement on national television docking 26 points from Sankoyo Bush Bucks, which meant the Maun-based club had been relegated.

That decision was to later be set aside by the BFA, culminating in a relegation play-off between Notwane and FC Satmos. And, up until the 90th minute, Notwane led 3-2, which meant the club was only a few minutes away from retaining its Premier League status. 

But typical in Murphy’s Law “if anything can go wrong, it definitely will.” Well, Satmos equalised in the dying minutes to take the game to extra time where the Selebi-Phikwe based outfit scored two more goals to emerge 6-4 victors.  And given that at one time the team was trailing by two goals, this was a sensational and emotional victory which the club will remember for years to come provided it protects its league status come the 2015-16 season.

Notwane, which has won many court battles before, had attempted to stop the play-off from taking place with an urgent court application to the High Court ,which was dismissed.

It was not clear what really Notwane wanted to achieve. With hindsight, it would look like when Somolekae presided over that committee that sought to strip Sankoyo of its points, he did so to protect the interests of Notwane than the sanctity of the game.

But yet there is another element to the whole scenario; the BFA play rules and regulations. Like I have said before, the rules might have generally served football well in the past, but the moment the stakes were raised in the Premier League and a semi-professional status adopted, it meant that the association has to look at some of its rules so as to accommodate the new dispensation.

The current rules are not adequate and I am of the view that the rule that called for a play-off between Satmos and Notwane is at variance with the constitution, rules of natural justice and fair play. This is borne out of the fact that after successfully lodging a protest against Sankoyo, Satmos were forced or required to play for the points again with a different opponent. It is like the club was just borrowed the points and can only make the points permanent if it could fight on the pitch. It is more of a double punishment to the complainant and besides, why should clubs or teams compete for a position?

If a club has defaulted in following the rules, it should just be punished and the matter ends. Sooner or later we will have a scenario whereby a team or club that has been deducted points is given another chance to play either for the league championship or relegation play-off.

This is ultra vires the spirit of fair play and why is the rule so selective as to affect only the relegation and championship. The association and its affiliates ought to go back to the drawing board and have a look at its rules and regulations. Things ought to be streamlined to avoid ambiguity. One of my biggest concerns is that when it comes to registering international players, the association and the league tend to place greater trust and work on the club. I find this wrong as it is tantamount to dereliction of duty.

If both the association and Premier League were proactive, the Morris Ruzvivo saga could have been avoided. In fact it is the association and the league that brought the game into disrepute and the Premier League management only rubbed salt into the injury, by adding to the confusion or disrepute.

Another issue is the administration of yellow cards. The league should take full responsibility and stop relying on the clubs. The league should be in a position to provide statistics to all as to who has many cautions and who is supposed to be on suspension especially that the referees do not report to the clubs, but rather to the association and the league. But it is quite a relief that FC Satmos have survived the chop as this will maintain a healthy balance of the clubs in the north versus those in the south. As things stand, we will for the first time in many years have four clubs from Central region, namely BR Highlanders, Green Lovers, Miscellaneous and Motlakase Power Dynamos while in Selebi-Phikwe there will be two clubs and the further two clubs from Orapa and Maun.  So the league is perfectly balanced, eight clubs from the north and eight from the south. Even if three of them were to relegate, at least five will remain, but people in Serowe will have a big dose of Premier League football come the 2015-16 season. The big blot is that the new stadium in Francistown could be a white elephant, hence I would appeal to the likes of Extension Gunners, Mochudi Centre Chiefs, Gaborone United and Township Rollers to take some of their games there. This applies to some of the Zebras games. The games have to spread.

 

Zebras

Zebras head coach, Peter James Butler leads his boys into his second stint in the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers when he plays Uganda in its backyard at Nelson Mandela Stadium in Kampala.  It is a game in which the Zebras have to avoid defeat at all costs otherwise it would be all over before we go far. In assembling his team, Butler called as many as five goalkeepers and I was wondering what it is that he wants to prove because we have many emerging goalkeepers in the country.

His mandate is to qualify us for the 2017 AFCON finals and anything short of that will be a complete failure. He has already cost us qualification for the Olympic Games and as such has to make amends for that. But otherwise good luck to the team.