Chiefs to appeal Nato ruling
Boitumelo Khutsafalo | Thursday March 3, 2016 16:01
Chiefs had lodged a protest challenging the eligibility of Township Rollers midfielder, Ofentse Nato. They are of the view that the player was improperly registered and should be declared a defaulter. The midfielder was part of the Rollers side that defeated Chiefs 3-1 in the first leg of the Mascom Top 8 semi final two weeks ago.
The case started last week before the Botswana Premier League DC where Rollers, in their preliminary arguments, had called for the dismissal of the protest. They argued that Chiefs did not follow the right procedure when lodging a protest as per article 5.1 of the Mascom Top 8 Play Rules and Regulations. The article stipulates that protests be lodged before kickoff of the said fixture. In their defence, Chiefs said their spokesperson, Clifford Mogomotsi made a verbal protest to a representative of the competition’s organising committee, Bickie Mbenge, before the game. Mbenge denied ever receiving a protest from Chiefs. However on Tuesday, the BPL DC ruled that they had not been given sufficient reasons to doubt Mbenge’s words.
“We find no basis on why Mr Mbenge would deny ever receiving a protest if he did,” BPL DC chairperson, Busang Manewe said. “We understand that Chiefs officials have been in the game for sometime and therefore would know how a protest should be lodged.”
Manewe said as the DC, they do not understand why Chiefs failed to lodge their protest with the match officials as they are the ones handling the game.
He said the match officials would be best suited to receive the protest because they record everything about the match and provide reports after the game.
He said because the rules and regulations of the competition are silent on who the protest should be lodged to, they would rely on the FIFA Statutes and the BFA Play Rules which both say protests be lodged with match officials.
“There has been failure by Chiefs to comply with article 5.1 of the Mascom Top 8 Play Rules and therefore we dismiss the protest,” he said. Chiefs were given 10 days to appeal the ruling.
Meanwhile, Gilport Lions’ protest hearing against the same player was postponed to today. All the concerned parties could not go onto the merits of the case because Rollers only received Lions’ affidavits on the same day of the initial date of the hearing.
Rollers requested that the case be postponed to allow them to respond to the Gilport Lions’ affidavits. They were given up to the end of yesterday (Wednesday) to have filed their response. BPL, through their representative, Mike Rasetshwane, were also to submit their affidavits and heads of arguments yesterday. Manewe had made it clear that the case should be dealt with this week so that the league is not disrupted.