Harare City Wins Case, Joins the Premiership

In a judgment released Friday, the Appeals Committee found nothing wrong in Harare City’s use of Webster Muronda arguing that the player had long been offloaded by AMC when he joined Harare City, bringing to an end the long dispute that was threatening to derail the start of the 2012 Premiership programme.

Harare City now join Southern Region champions Quelaton,  Eastern Region title winners, Buffaloes and Central Region’s top team, Hardbody,  as the four teams that have been promoted into the Premiership replacing relegated Shooting Stars, Zimbabwe Saints, Kiglon,  and Masvingo United.

Hardbody had to go through the Commercial Arbitration Centre to have their promotion also confirmed after Tripple B had also contested their promotion on the same reason that they had illegally used player, Tatenda Chingara.

As a result of the promotion disputes, the Premier Soccer League had not yet released the fixtures for this season but had made it clear that the disputes had to be concluded before the start of the season at the end of the month.

Premier Soccer League Chief Executive Officer Kennedy Ndebele said it was refreshing that the disputes have finally come to an end adding that their focus is now on planning for the start of the season.

Harare City finished as the champions of the northern region after accumulating 51points, one point, ahead of second placed Dstv.

But Dstv complained that Harare City had used an ineligible player Muronda whom they claimed belonged to another first division side, AMC.

A Northern Region Disciplinary Committee found Harare City guilty and deducted 18points off the team leaving Dstv as the champions.

But the battle was far from over as Harare City appealed to the Zifa Appeals Committee against the disciplinary committee’s decision, but the Zifa Appeals Committee referred the case back to the Zifa Northern Region culminating in the latest developments.

Harare City are coached by Bigboy Mawiwi who said the team had not stopped training and had been preparing for their maiden appearance in Premiership football.

In their favour, is the fact that, Harare City will not suffer from the heavy gate taking deductions by the City of Harare as the team is owned by the City Fathers, the owners of the stadiums.