TelOne threaten to quit
TELONE has threatened to surrender their Castle Lager Premier Soccer League franchise due to bad officiating.
The Zifa Central Region Division One champions accuse match officials of ruining their recent two matches against Hwange and Yadah.
Yesterday TelOne wrote to the PSL complaining about the treatment they have received lately adding that their in-vestment in football is not proving a worthy corporate social responsibility project.
“We would like to make an official complaint over consistent poor and biased officiating in our Hwange FC and Yadah FC matches. “Our recent match against Yadah FC has prompted us to write and start considering whether it is worth our salt to continue participating in the league for the remainder of the season and in the future, ”read part of the letter. TelOne trailed 0-3 going into added time against Yadah on Sunday and managed two quick goals in a dramatic end to the game. And when referee Tichaona Tigere ended the match, TelOne felt the final whistle was premature.
“We have had rightful penalties not given and players being booked for bad decisions. We have been quiet over the past Hwange match but our recent match against Yadah FC has forced us to break the silence over poor and deteriorating match officiating standards.“The conduct of the match officials for the Yadah match left a lot to be desired and if no action is taken to arrest this we will soon consider an abrupt end to our life in the Premier Soccer League to protect our corporate brand and the huge financial resources that TelOne is channelling into the game of football at the expense of other worthy corporate social responsibility projects.“The recent performance of Mr. Tigere who surprisingly has been staffed to officiate our match against Yadah FC has left us convinced that the local game is critically suffering from biased officiating and subsequent integrity which is scary to current and would-be sponsors.
“The match prematurely ended in the fifth minute of the nine additional times after we had scored two goals in the nine additional minutes and upon realising that we were forcing for a draw, he then decided to end the match prematurely.”