The ManicaPost
Ray Bande Senior Sports Reporter—
One continues to dither on the fate of the aborted league match pitting Yadah Stars FC and Prime Rangers although unconfirmed reports indicate that they have already awarded maximum points to the Harare based Prophetic Healing and Deliverance Ministries outfit.
It is now three weeks after the match was abandoned and only two weeks remain before the curtain comes down on the 2016 season but still, in their wisdom or lack of it, the league administration cannot make public the decision on the fate of that match.
The match pitting Yadah FC and Prime Rangers was abandoned in the 86th minute after the former had been awarded a penalty with four minutes of regulation time remaining, while Prime Rangers was leading by a solitary goal.
Reports indicate that the penalty did not go down well with Prime Rangers officials and players who vehemently protested against the referee’s decision until police intervened and advised the referees to abandon the match or else proceed at their own risk.
This became the second match inside one month involving Yadah Stars FC that was abandoned and once again a boardroom decision will have to be made.
A day after the abandonment of the Yadah Stars, Prime Rangers match, ZIFA Eastern Region chairman, Davison Muchena, confirmed that they had received reports from match officials and a committee would sit down with the concerned parties to deliberate on the issue before making public their decision the next Sunday.
The following week, Muchena failed to announce the decision on the abandoned encounter saying his executive had decided to forward their deliberations and final decision to the association’s legal practitioners for guidance.
Until yesterday, Muchena could not come out in the open to announce their decision although it is now widely believed that they have already awarded three points to Yadah Stars.
Repeated efforts to get a comment from Muchena yesterday were fruitless as he both his mobile phones were either unreachable or went unanswered.
Contacted for comment Zifa Eastern Region secretary Simba Wisdom referred all questions back to Muchena.
Interestingly, last week Muchena must have assumed the media are so gullible when he circulated the referee and the match commissioner’s report on the aborted match while deliberately holding on to the police report that did not augur well with the referee and commissioners’ reports.
According to match commissioner Abraham Abbie Phakiri’s report, the referee “abandoned the match also citing lack of mental fitness to continue with the match making correct and informed decisions especially after being charged in such fashion”.
For reasons best known to none but himself, Phakiri dwells on the discussions they had with Constable Mavhu during the melee but deliberately did not give mention in his report about the discussions he had with a more senior police official Seargant Major Kapandasaru on the same matter.
However, in a police report on the same issue, Sergeant Kapandasaru wrote “This led to a stoppage of over 30 minutes until I intervened and enquired with the match commissioner who indicated that the referee cannot continue with the match as he feared for his safety. I assured him that we had enough police officers to make sure that the match resumed and HE TOLD ME THAT THE LIGHT WAS NO LONGER ALLOWING THE GAME TO CONTINUE”.
This inevitably invites the question whether the match was abandoned because the referee was no longer in the right mental state to officiate for the remaining four minutes, as the match commissioner is dying to prove in his report or that it was already very dark for the remaining four minutes to be played as the commissioner put it to the senior police officer present but deliberately omitted it in his report.
The match commissioner, throughout his report which was circulated to several media houses thanks to the Zifa Eastern Region chairman Davison Muchena’s ‘communication skills’, is at pains to project Prime Rangers conduct as the main reason the match was aborted.
