It may not make me popular, but…

“I won’t be recommending people who have to learn on the job, the PSL can ill-afford that.”

“If you don’t clear the backlog and encourage cases to be postponed, end of May is around the corner.”

It’s become a disturbing trend that the Premier Soccer League season is thrown into a tailspin right at its climax due to outstanding disciplinary cases. Nande Becker has often been the scapegoat – a lot of the backlog supposedly caused by a delay from his office and leaving the relegation, promotion, Top Eight and sometimes

even the championship race in limbo. He’s resigned as PSL prosecutor, but before there was panic, the League had asked Zola Majavu, a man who is no stranger to the role, to take over in the interim. Soccer Laduma’s Mazola Molefe asked the no-nonsense attorney how he plans to transform what is arguably the most important wing of the PSL and help it avoid controversy come May.

Mazola Molefe: Why did you return as Premier Soccer League prosecutor?

Zola Majavu: I never really left. But I came back as prosecutor because I was requested to do so by Dr Irvin Khoza (PSL chairman) on the mandate of the Executive Committee, and during our discussions, I indicated to him that I will never think twice to be of assistance to the League or football. My heart is still with the PSL, and it is through them that my stature, over and above being a lawyer in my own right, grew. So, when the request was made, it was not a difficult decision to mak e. I had to explain to him that I have other obligations that I have in my own space and that should be understood.

MM: What do you mean you never really left?

ZM:

You are probably the first one I share this with. I started with organized football between 2000 and 2002 when I was the chair of the SAFA disciplinary committee. Then I moved in 2002 to be the League prosecutor as well as the convener of the Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC) and I was one of the founding members of the Bargaining Chamber, where we sought to allow the unions space to organise footballers professionally. That carried on until 2012, and then I had a short stint as CEO on the request of Exco, but we parted ways three months later and, to this day, I never opened my mouth about why that was because I believe I was open enough to share my issues with the chairman. For me, it matters not who was right and who was wrong – the fact of the matter is that we agreed to disagree and then parted ways amicably. Two months later at the Board of Governors, I was requested to go back to the disciplinary committee and chair it this time around, having been a prosecutor for just over 10 years. I served as DC chair for a full term of four years. When the term ended, I was asked to continue for a second term, but I indicated that I would rather be reassigned another role. I wanted to mak e space for new lawyers to occupy that space – if you stay too long in a position, in my professional view, complacency sets in. As an ambitious professional, I didn’t want that for myself. I have been work ing for the League since 2016 as a member of the licensing body.

MM: Given your ambitions, will you remain PSL prosecutor?

ZM:

I came back with the understanding that I will be here only until the end of the season, and part of what I was requested to do in the interim is to also try and identify a successor, who I could start work ing with so that when I leave, there is someone who is immediately in a state of readiness to hit the ground running. Obviously, the decision is that of the Exco, but I can tell you openly that I was requested to also assist and it is well underway. We are hoping a transition will be seamless. I won’t be recommending people who have to learn on the job, the PSL can ill-afford that particular approach.

MM: Your role is such a key element for the League. How are you going to enforce changes?

ZM: I have sought to categorize cases in the following groups. One, those that have a potential impact of adversely affecting the rounding up of the league season. Two, those that are less serious to an extent that you could deal with them on the basis of an admission of guilt. And then thirdly, those that are less serious but in my view would not be properly dispensed with an admission of guilt.

MM: How does an admission of guilt approach work?

ZM:

It’s like you driving on the freeway and being given a ticket. You have an option to go contest that tick et if you feel that you were not wrong or have a justifiable reason. But if you decide you want to pay, then you simply pay the fine without appearing in court. It is a similar system, and a lot of the cases seem to fall in that category after I did an analysis from the handover, a very detailed one I must add, from Mr (Nande) Becker. I realised that almost half of these cases can simply be done on the basis that I send the club or official a charge sheet - if you accept your guilt, you simply sign and pay the fine, end of the story. A lot of the clubs seem to prefer that option because sometimes coming to a DC, you run the risk that they find against you, then you have to pay the cost of the DC, which may be more than the fine you could have paid.

I think they would rather use their time doing other things that are in line with the core of their business.

MM: Why did Becker not use a similar approach?

ZM:

I think , in fairness to him, he did. But I don’t think he utilised it optimally. It’s not a Majavu invention; in fact, it was in the rulebook even in my previous stint – all the way back to the days of Trevor Phillips. What we simply did was we kept on increasing the limit because we can’t k eep it too low to a point where it is useless. We put it (the fine) at a reasonable amount that would be a sufficient incentive for football clubs to avail themselves. So, he (Beck er) did use it, and I don’t want to speak badly about someone who is no longer there to speak for themselves. I find that it works and it is so efficient that it assists the clubs as well. The other one that is less serious is going before the DC proper. But I formulate the charge sheet in such a way that you can indicate in advance what your intentions are – are you pleading guilty or not, can we exchange documents, line up witnesses, get interpreters and so on. They may appear small things, but you convene a hearing and Mr X says, “I want to speak in Tshivenda”, and nobody thought to bring in a Tshivenda interpreter, then you have to postpone. Having acted as a judge, I k now how it is to manage a case, to force both parties to do what is needed before the hearing.

MM: How are you going to deal with delay tactics?

ZM:

The one thing for sure is that I’ve made it very clear that as a prosecutor, I am not going to agree or grant anyone a postponement. If you want that, go before the DC and justify. If I don’t believe your reasons are justifiable, I will oppose it. At the end of the day, the DC will decide. I find that already takes care of unnecessary requests. When there are good reasons, one doesn’t want to be unreasonable because the member clubs are a stak eholder, I am not the enemy! But at the same time, they themselves must understand that if we don’t finish these cases, then the League as a collective looks bad. You’ve got to mak e it less easy to obtain unnecessary postponements.

MM: It will only be to their detriment.

ZM:

Yes, it will be. Let me give you an example. The Kaizer Chiefs matter, I charged them and enrolled the case for a hearing. Before the hearing, they came with a request for a postponement because they wanted to refer the matter to arbitration as is their right. I then said, “No, if you want a post

ponement, you bring an application before the DC and if they believe there are good grounds, then they will grant you a postponement and if there are no good grounds, they won’t grant you one.” We must all be ready to argue in case there’s no postponement. In fairness to them, they came to the DC with a formal application, which I did not oppose because it was pragmatically sensible. But they knew they had to do so in front of the DC, who could have said no, and I was ready to proceed and they would have had to be too. That is the one thing I am putting my foot down on and it may not make me popular, but at the end of the day, people understand and appreciate the principle because if you don’t clear the backlog and encourage cases to be postponed, end of May is around the corner. Before we know it, we would be back to where we were. We have a lot of fixtures, and for every fixture, it is a potential DC hearing because there might be non-compliance with COVID manuals, which were not there before, safety protocols, venue arrangements or a whole host of other issues. It could be anything. If you are not in a state of readiness to deal with cases as they arise, you run into problems.

MM: And this is exactly what you were known for. There’s an incident at the weekend and the Monday after, you’ve issued a charge sheet!

ZM:

I elect not to speak about why this didn’t carry through after my departure. But when I said there was no crisis at the League, I meant the rules are such that it is a well-oiled machine and you just have to put your foot down. I am not here to be popular. I am there to implement the rules that were implemented by the very same 32 clubs, and once they understand and respect that, which they do most of the time, you simply then do what you have to do. I am hopeful that we will go back to that. There’s nothing out of the ordinary that I have brought in. What I am referring to is in the rulebook and also as a lawyer to say if I give you five days’ notice, you can’t come back on day five and ask for a postponement. There are instances where I can say the rules say I must charge on five days’ notice, but ask if we can do it in 48 hours’ notice. Some clubs say, “By all means, I want this off my back”, and we do it that way. Others insist on their five days. But if you adopt that approach, then on day five, don’t expect me to be amenable to a postponement because in those five business days, you ought to have prepared for the case. This is not personal, I don’t go in there guns blazing and wanting to get a conviction. No. I have lost cases, and sometimes the DC has ruled in a manner different to what I had argued. I accept that, it’s the way the judicial system works. That’s why I never made enemies, only opponents. The mutual respect remains. I am not doing what Majavu wants, but what the 32 member clubs said this is how they want to be governed. In fairness to the league, it is one of the best wellrun, especially from the judicial processes point of view. I served in the highest judicial bodies of FIFA for 12 years and the number of cases referred from SA were very few, not more than five in that period. That’s impressive. We shouldn’t act as if there’s a crisis. Maybe the perception was fueled by the lack of communication.

MM: Should the NSL handbook be amended, taking COVID into account?

ZM: It would be disingenuous to suggest the rules do not need any rejigging. They do. I have made the point that as and when developments happen, we need to amend our rules so that they can keep pace with developments. In fact, the very COVID regulations themselves are changed by the Command Council from time to time. So, it would be foolhardy not to take your cue in that regard. Nobody knows, even the club owners didn’t know the extent or magnitude and how COVID was going to impact us. It even affects us in courts. Some of the cases are running online. It’s throwing a spanner in the works. At the end of the season, I will give a report back to say what I have picked up in my short stint and make suggestions to the BoG. You know us human beings, when the rulebook favours me, I will insist on it, but when it doesn’t, I want it to be bent here and there.

MM: Why do member clubs often challenge the principles that they all agreed on?

ZM:

It’s not unique to football, even the laws of the country are passed by the legislature and when those laws have to be applied to them, they are the first to challenge them. But that is the nature of living in a constitutional democracy. Someone must write the rules, others must implement, like me. And at times, you implement against the authors thereof – it is human nature that you will have this. In a perfect world, you would expect a challenge from somewhere else, but not from those who made the rules. Poor me, when I implement them, people tend to think I hate them.

MM: What do you make of the rule that agents can no longer approach the PSL DRC for disputes like non-payment?

ZM:

I know we grappled with that issue at FIFA. In any organized environment, you need to know the people you are dealing with. You can’t wake up now and go to a court of law and say, “I want to represent so and so.” You have to be properly accredited and qualified to do that, as a principle. There was a deluge of people who were claiming to be player representatives, and I cast no aspersions on anyone, just trying to give you the best insight. FIFA recognised player agents, and also outlined the process one has to follow in order to earn that designation. In order to bypass those rigorous requirements, people started ascribing themselves titles – anything but a player agent, which FIFA recognised. Others have opted to use lawyers, and FIFA gave an exemption for lawyers. It may well be that some people can do better, but it has to do with the regulatory framework. When you are able to participate in these judiciary processes, you must also be protected. If you are not registered, there’s going to be problems. That was the rationale - you can’t let just about anybody to now claim to be a player representative. The very players sometimes come back to the judicial bodies to complain that they were swindled. It’s a difficult balancing act that organized football had to contend with. I am unsure how it was finally resolved, but the idea was not to leave the player to hang. In the context of SA, we also have a bargaining chamber, which came as a recognition agreement between the Players’ Union and organized football. And who the chamber, organized football or the players use to represent them is up to them. That is why most of them opted for Mr Johan van Gaalen to take care of the player’s interest as an accredited professional, but through the Union. Those who are complaining and saying they are left on the sidelines are people who are not operating within that particular framework.

“It is a well-oiled machine and you just have to put your foot down.”

MM: Agents are upset. What are the rules of engagement?

ZM:

When a DRC is constituted at the League, it is done by the same number of people who were recommended by the player representatives, then you have the same number through the League. Even in FIFA, I was appointed continentally to represent the leagues. Mr Van Gaalen represented players. If it’s a quorum of three, it will be one from the leagues, one from the players’ representatives and an independent chair. A five-member panel means it will be two, two, plus one – an equal number. But when you are in the chamber, you don’t advance the League’s interests at the expense of the player. You are a court and adjudicate on the law and the facts objectively. That debate (agents being sidelined) was a side issue created by people who, in my respectful view, did not want to be part of the regulatory framework.

MM: Is the Players’ Union doing enough? Some say they are colluding with the League because of the bargaining agreement signed in November 2019.

ZM:

No. I think it’s an oversimplification or a disingenuous way of looking at it. It’s a commercial reality that the more the League stature grows, the more the commercial benefits grow – and there will be disputes. No one can tell you how they can stop disputes, those will happen because it is not something within your control. The issue is whether when a dispute arises, do you have the mechanisms that are adequate to ensure a speedy resolution? The answer is a resounding yes. The PSL DRC, continentally, is one of the best judiciary civil bodies. What is within our control is the mechanisms that can enable us to filter through disputes as and when they arise and whether or not the club against whom an order is made to make payment has got the money is another story. But in fairness to the clubs and players, if an order is made, the League has got the authority to deduct that money from the grant and pay to the players directly. That happens. But some clubs could be in financial distress and not even getting the grant. You can’t blame the judicial system – players can’t say the League is in cahoots. No, we can’t be in cahoots with anyone. The integrity of those people who serve in the committees cannot be bought by the Union. They are private practitioners – you are not going to buy me with anything as a prosecutor or a convener of the DRC. I have an integrity outside this environment. Those characterizations are a bit unfortunate, it cannot be correct. We must not generalize. The truth of the matter is that we’ve got a system that’s working and the players are utilising it. The referral fee is a small amount, so no one can say they can’t take their dispute to the DRC because they don’t have the money. Access to that type of justice is open, but we must not confuse it with the outcome and the implantation of the outcome because that changes from club to club, situation to situation. And sometimes players themselves sign contracts that they don’t understand. Instead of the Union educating their own players, they want to pass on the blame to club owners as if they are monsters. It’s a contract. You can’t say you were desperate and hungry. Nobody forced you, a contract is the coming together of the minds.