ZIFA have dismissed with contempt the decision by the PSL to take them to the Court for Arbitration of Sport (CAS) over the relegation and promotion issue, saying the decision was premature and “an emotional act that lacks merit.” The main thrust of ZIFA’s argument is that the PSL did not exhaust all domestic channels to resolve the impasse between the two bodies.
ZIFA’s chairman of their constitutional review committee Itai Ndudzo said:
The way we are looking at it is that the noise being made is nothing but nonsensical grandstanding without an appreciation of the elementary provisions of the ZIFA constitution.
Article 59 (of the ZIFA constitution) is very clear that any dispute is to be resolved using the domestic remedies that are available.
Article 59 of the ZIFA constitution states that:
ZIFA shall create an Arbitration Tribunal, which shall deal with all internal national disputes between ZIFA, its members, players, officials and match and players’ agents that do not fall under the jurisdiction of its judicial bodies. The Executive Committee shall draw up special regulations regarding the composition, jurisdiction and procedural rules of this Arbitration Tribunal.
As long as within ZIFA no national independent Arbitration Tribunal has been duly constituted and recognised under the rules and regulations of ZIFA, any dispute of national dimension between ZIFA, its members, clubs, players, officials and match and players’ agents that do not fall under the jurisdiction of its judicial bodies may only be referred in the last instance to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland.
CAS will settle the dispute to the exclusion of any ordinary court unless expressly prohibited by the legislation in force in Zimbabwe
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