Chiefs, PSL to pick one of three top legal eagles as arbitrator
Amakhosi in hot water over failure to honour games
The South African Football Association (Safa) CEO Tebogo Motlanthe has written to both Kaizer Chiefs and the Premier Soccer League (PSL) legal department informing them of the three candidates to be arbitrators in Amakhosi’s Covid-19 protracted matter.
This comes after Chiefs did not show up for two Dstv Premiership matches in December and were hauled before the PSL disciplinary committee (DC) for a hearing last Friday. The hearingwas postponed after Chiefs sought the intervention of Safa to arbitrate on the matter.
Motlanthe has given the two parties the option of choosing between William Mokhari SC, Nazeer Cassim SC, and Hilton Epstein SC.
The trio has been involved in high-level football matters in recent years and its knowledge of the rules and PSL handbook will come handy during the arbitration procedure.
Mokhari was arbitrator in the Ajax Cape Town and Tendai Ndoro (Ndorogate) saga in 2018, while both Cassim and Epstein were involved in the relegation/promotion dog-fight between Sekhukhune United FC, the PSL, and Royal AM at the end of last season.
“In line with article 81 of the disciplinary committee code, both Chiefs and the PSL must choose who they want as the arbitrator, if the two parties cannot reach consensus in choosing one person, then I, as the CEO of the federation, will have to appoint someone out of the three. Once he has been appointed, the arbitrator will decide on the date, time and venue,” said Motlanthe.
Chiefs have roped in the services of legal eagle Norman Arendse to represent the club and handle their defence. Arendse’s instructing attorney Karabo Mathangtshabuse was not available to comment further on their preferred choice of an arbitrator.
PSL prosecutor Zola Majavu was also not available to provide the way forward with the arbitrator.
Last week, Majavu announced that the matter was postponed to next month. He said the reason for the postponement was to allow Chiefs to finalise the arbitration matter with Safa.
“The matter proceeded before the PSL disciplinary committee. Chiefs brought upon an application for the DC to be stayed pending the outcome of their urgent referral of their dispute for arbitration under Safa. We agreed that the matter should be postponed but the timelines must be put in place so that the matter does not fall through the cracks.
“It was also recognised that it must be finalised as soon as possible, way before the league draws to an end. With that acceptance, the DC was inclined to grant the request by Chiefs that the matter stands down until the arbitration at Safa is finalised.
“The matter was subsequently postponed to 25 February.
“Depending on the outcome, it may well be that the matter may not proceed in the current format, but we should not pre-empt the outcome of the arbitration,” said Majavu.