03 Apr 2016

The case in which Mochudi Centre Chiefs was protesting against Township Rollers’ use of what they termed defaulters in the Mascom Top 8 semi-finals played in Francistown on March 12 has been dismissed.

When passing judgement on  Friday, Botswana Premier League (BPL) disciplinary committee chairperson, Busang Manewe said all teams in the premier league had violated regulation 2.3, which specified the limit of registered players in each team.

Manewe said summoning all of the teams to a hearing for contravening the said regulation would disrupt the league and all the related competitions such as Mascom Top 8; as such the most pragmatic way out of the dilemma was not to punish anyone for the simple reason that all were equally at fault. “The discretion to dismiss Chiefs’ protest was in the interest of football in Botswana. I urge the premier league and the football fraternity to develop a culture of playing in accordance with the rules,” he advised.

He also reminded that Botswana Football Association (BFA) play rules and regulations 2.3 clearly stipulated that a club shall be allowed to register 25 players at any given time for its main team.

“Professionalism in the local football will remain a pie in the sky, far beyond everyone’s reach, especially if the Botswana Premier League is similarly at fault by allowing teams to register players beyond the quota,’’ he lamented.

Regulation 2.3 further stipulated that should a club wish to use a player registered with any of its junior teams in its main team, it shall first register the player as a member of its main team provided that such registration observed the quota of 30 players. It also said for purposes of the play rules, “junior team” shall be teams that consist of players of up to the age of 17.

Manewe said evidence before them was that Township Rollers had registered 28 players yet they did not have any player from their junior team; it was common cause that both Ofentse Nato and Terence Mandaza were registered after the closure of the January 2016 registration period and that at the time Township Rollers had already exceeded its quota of 25 players.

“There can be no doubt that Nato and Mandaza’s registration by Township Rollers after they had exhausted their registration quota renders the duo defaulters in terms of regulation 2.3. We note that even Township Rollers did not dispute the fact that the registration of these two men violated regulation 2.3,” he said.

He said from the evidence before them, Chiefs had also registered three players in excess of the stipulated quota, but they had argued that they had only registered a squad of 25 players as per the rules.

They also contended that the list provided by premier league contained some players such as Charles, Mutere Mkhayisele Siwahla, among others, who had been released by the club on account of the fact that Immigration Department could not extend their permits.

Manewe said if a team wanted to remove any player from its list, they have to deregister the player, but Chiefs had not deregistered the three players in question; as such the said players remained Chiefs’ registered players.

He said it must also be noted that deregistering, just like registration, was a formal process, therefore, Chiefs was found to have also committed the same offence it was complaining about. He added that evidence had also been presented that Chiefs participated in the 2014-15 season with over 25 players registered and they were crowned champions.  Ends