Aces chairman attending the playoffs case
Mpumalanga Black Aces chairman Mario Morfou, recently attended the second Court of Arbitration for Sport’s (CAS) hearing on the drawn out cases of Thanda Royal Zulu and Chippa United over last season’s PSL playoffs.
Aces website reported that they were joined by the PSL and Polokwane City, who argued against SAFA and Thanda Royal Zulu on the basis of Advocate P Pretorius’ arbitration case. The hearings, initially scheduled at the CAS head office in Lausanne, Switzerland, were heard in Sandton with the Chippa case heard on Monday, January 6 and the Thanda case heard the following day.
Thanda Royal Zulu’s primary argument is that they want all 2012/13 NFD teams to play 27 matches only and argued that Polokwane played their full quota of 30 matches, while Santos played 28 games.
Should this have been the case, Mpumalanga Black Aces would have won the league and won automatic qualification to the PSL, Chippa United argued that the PSL playoffs were on a provisional basis and they were seeking to be included as a 17th team in the current 2013/14 PSL.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), created in 1984, is an institution independent of any sports organisation, which provides for services in order to facilitate the settlement of sports-related disputes, through arbitration or mediation by means of procedural rules adapted to the specific needs of the sports world. Mario Morfou said he was confident that the right decision will be made and that it would have no bearing on Aces’ PSL status.
“If we had played 27 games we would have won the league. We participated in the playoffs and earned our PSL status the hard way,” explained Morfou.
