Here’s the latest on the Ajax, Ndoro and PSL messy business
JOHANNESBURG: The 2018/19 season will start as scheduled next week after Ajax Cape Town withdrew their urgent interdict and application to enforce Judge Denise Fisher’s ruling, but the matter is still far from over.
The Urban Warriors boss, Ari Efstathiou, cut a frustrated figure at the South Gauteng High Court. He refused to speak to the media on why they withdrew their interdict and section 18 application that would immediately enforce Judge Fisher’s judgement that had put aside Advocate William Mokhari’s ruling. Fisher argued that Mokhari didn’t have the jurisdiction to rule on the matter of Tendai Ndoro’s eligibility since it had an international dimension, instead referring it to Fifa Player’s Status Committee.
The Premier Soccer League was granted leave to appeal Fisher’s judgement. The appeal will now be heard in front of a full bench of judges as an urgent matter.
“Ajax has withdrawn the application to interdict the league from starting but the issue of the application for leave of Judge Fisher’s judgement stands until it’s set aside,” PSL lawyer Denis Sibuyi said. “That has to be dealt with. Remember once that has been dealt with, it’s also going to pave the way on the merits of whether Ndoro was eligible to play or not. We have to go through that … in simple terms, Mokhari’s award stands as things stand. That’s because if we get leave to appeal, Judge Fisher’s judgement gets suspended.”
That’s why the PSL also released the fixtures of the MTN8 using the revised standings that came after Mokhari’s ruling. Efstathiou and Advocate Norman Arendse will address the media today in the Mother City.
The Cape side were embarrassed in court on two occasions yesterday. Firstly it was Judge Fisher who asked Arendse why Ajax haven’t taken the matter directly to Fifa as only them and Safa can approach the world governing body and not the PSL who aren’t an affiliate. Arendse stuttered and couldn’t respond coherently. Even though there has been plenty of correspondence to Fifa from Ajax, Safa and the PSL, the world governing body hasn’t been officially asked to step in on the matter. If they were asked early by a member in good standing, the matter would probably have been finalised now.
Judge Mudau, who was to hear the Urban Warriors’ urgent interdict, was frustrated with Ajax arriving late and then asking for a 15 minutes adjournment to brief Ajax Amsterdam that Judge Fisher had granted the PSL leave of appeal.
The Urban Warriors will today reveal their plans going forward. Even though they withdrew two applications they had put in front of the court, Ajax will still fight the matter as they have spent a fortune to get this far. The PSL being granted leave to appeal doesn’t mean that the PSL has won, it just means that their case will be heard as the organisation argued they are fighting Judge Fisher’s judgement because they don’t want it to leave a precedent that would harm their day-to-day business by going to Fifa every time there’s a transfer with an international dimension.