Premier Soccer League (PSL) chairman Farai Jere has condemned the acts of hooliganism that caused the abandonment of the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League match between FC Platinum and Caps United at Mandava Stadium on Saturday.
Match officials had run into the tunnel with Caps United fans in hot pursuit following a decision to chalk off Ralph Kawondera’s goal which would have put the score line at 1-1 with two minutes to go.
Juan Mutudza had given the platinum miners and early first half lead and Caps were fighting to salvage something in the dying moments.
Assistant referee Mncedisi Maposa raised his flag for an offside after Kawondera curled in the ball into the net from outside the box at the end of a rebound.
Jere, who is Caps United’s president, criticized his own club saying the fans behaviour tarnishes the image of the club and the league.
“This is totally unacceptable, I have been reading about the events and watching the videos, but we don’t take law into our own hands,” he said. “What Caps United fans did is totally unacceptable. People make mistakes sometimes its misjudgment and not deliberate. So it’s not good for us to judge and come up with positions because the laws of the game are changing. We want football to be the winner. The referee’s decision is final. The referee signaled that there was an offside; there were still two minutes to play plus additional time, who knows maybe we could have scored one or two goals.
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Jere called for the protection of referees and respect their decisions.
“Let’s protect our referees so that we enjoy football. There are moves to make sure we have good referees in our league. We have reduced the number of referees who officiate in the PSL so that we have quality. The referees keep on working and they keep on improving. We need to respect life; we need to respect our referees. If you have grievances there are channels where you can launch you complaint. Some of them have been suspended when reports came in. But generally the quality of our refereeing has improved.”
He said that Caps United now face a hefty fine over pitch invasion and causing the abandonment of a match.
“We have brought the game of football into disrepute and now the same club that we dearly love is going to be fined heavily because it’s very clear what the statues say. We know even before we go for a hearing that it’s a serious offence. As the chairman of PSL and the president of Caps United I am not happy with the videos what I am seeing of the fans going after the referees. We don’t condone any acts of violence in our football. Let’s respect referees, they make decisions in a split of a second, even in Europe VAR (Video Assistant Referee) is making mistakes, someone sitting and watching on a monitor makes mistakes. I want to encourage the responsible authorities to deal with this as soon as possible because the statutes are there.”