Local soccer confusion
HANDS TIED: PSL CANNOT MAKE A CALL UNTIL THEY GET SAFA GREEN LIGHT
Chairman Khoza denies they had ever made any resumption dates public at any stage.
Yesterday’s Premier Soccer League media conference left more questions than it answered. It was expected that PSL chairman Irvin Khoza would give a clear indication on when he restart of the league program would be but instead he couldn’t give dates as the PSL are apparently waiting for Safa to give them the green light on their proposal.
Khoza also denied the dates which were contained in a leaked letter from PSL CEO, Mato Madlala to her Safa counterpart, Tebogo Mothlanthe which indicated they were ready to start this weekend.
“What we have done as a normal practice is that we submitted the dates – and we have not made any dates public, if there are dates made public, they are not ours. We have submitted the dates to Safa, as per normal so they can supply the referees. We just have to wait (for Safa),” said Khoza.
He said they had taken all measures possible to ensure that the return to action is safe and said they would have a biologically-safe bubble where anyone who got in was tested and didn’t come out until the games were finished.
“I have indicated that football in its nature is seen as playing and not as a business.
“All of you sitting here go to work, using taxis, buses and trains…in some instances you go to shopping centres and when you get home there is no social distancing, no mask wearing.
“Imagine the risk there. Now the idea of lockdown is that we minimize gathering of crowds. What we have provided as a solution was based on a medically safe risk to make sure that we had an environment that was safe. Whoever goes into the bubble must be tested first, if you are not negative, you cannot go into the bubble, (and once inside) you cannot come out of the bubble,” he said.
Khoza also felt that the negative perception on the return of football was “unfair” as they are also in business. “Of all companies that have already resumed work, give me one that has done tests before resuming. Any company…
“For us it was good that we did it this way because some clubs discovered that they had cases they would not have known about.
“And if it had been done earlier it would have been better still, because it would have assisted in managing the spread of the virus.
“What we have done is not 100% perfect, but it mitigates the risk, unlike other companies.
“If other companies were subjected to the same conditions, we would have seen a mass closing of their businesses because of the risk that went with it.”