New play-off date after COSAFA Cup

Boitumelo Khutsafalo | Friday June 24, 2016 15:31

 

Unfinished business: Chiefs and Rollers will have to meet in a play- off

The match, which was scheduled for last week Wednesday at the National Stadium, was postponed at the last minute following the intervention of the Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC).

The decision by the BNSC attracted mixed reactions from the football fraternity. While others felt it was a good decision considering that the Zebras were preparing for their match against Namibia, others felt it came at the wrong time with the two teams having already incurred costs on preparations.

The Botswana Football Association (BFA) president, Tebogo Sebego also expressed disappointment at the fact that the decision was defying a binding ruling of the BFA national disciplinary committee (NDC).  BPL official, Marco Maje yesterday said a new date could only be set after Zebras finished their engagement at the COSAFA Castle Cup in Namibia. The Zebras qualified for the final of the competition for the first time when they defeated Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) 5-4 on penalties on Wednesday night. They meet South Africa in the final tomorrow.

“The reason it was postponed was to allow the national team to prepare for COSAFA (Cup). So we can only wait until they come back before a new date can be set. That time both sides will have their players back,” he said.

Rollers have Joel Mogorosi and Kabelo Dambe in the team with Lebogang Ditsile and Mwapule Masule not eligible to play the match since they were not registered with Rollers last season. Chiefs on the other hand have three players, Lemponye Tshireletso, Lesego Galenamotlhale and Thato Kebue in the COSAFA Cup team.  

The match is expected to put to bed a long-standing issue over which team is to be crowned the BPL champions. Chiefs were recently successful in their appeal over the registration of Ofentse Nato and were awarded two points.

Miscellaneous were also given three points leaving Chiefs at the top of the log. However, they were ordered to play against Rollers to determine the league winners since they were on top because of soft points.