JOHANNESBURG – Ajax Cape Town chairman Ari Efstathiou left the South Gauteng High Court on Tuesday morning disappointed as their urgent interdict of the start of the 2018/19 season was postponed.
The Urban Warriors had no choice but to stand down on the matter as they received the papers from the Premier Soccer League on the eve of their appearance in front of Judge Mudau.
Ajax have interdicted the start of the 2018/19 season after the PSL decided to appeal Judge Denise Fisher’s judgement that set aside Advocate William Mokhari’s ruling on the Tendai Ndoro matter which had led to the Urban Warriors’ relegation.
Fisher’s ruling, setting aside Mokhari’s judgement, means that Ajax were reinstated to 15th position until the matter is heard at the Fifa Players’ Status Committee who the judge deemed are the right body to rule on Ndoro’s eligibility.
The Zimbabwean played for three teams in one season, which is illegal under Fifa rules as a player can register for three teams but only play for two.
“We’re disappointed because this delays this matter even further,” Efstathiou said. “We were hoping to have some sort of direction today. Unfortunately we didn’t have a choice but to stand it down.
“ We will now come back to see Judge Fisher on Thursday morning for the leave to appeal issue and then at 11h30 come to this court with the interdict. It’s another two days. It’s very frustrating for everybody.
“It’s something that needs to be dealt with and needs to be dealt with quickly. I just hope that it’s not a delay to make things a bit more difficult. The league could have dealt with this (speedily). We gave them papers on Wednesday.
“They could have easily responded by Friday. They responded on Monday evening. We received papers on the way here (from Cape Town). We need to respond back. Everybody knew that we needed to respond.”
Despite this, the PSL is adamant that the league will start on August 4. The PSL chairman Irvin Khoza made that proclamation right after announcing that they would appeal Fisher’s ruling.
“Everybody is fighting their case,” Efstathiou said.
“They’ve got specific reasons why they are appealing the case. I am not sure whether they can be successful or not. They could be. With any kind of court application I always say that you’re in a 50/50 position. As much as you can feel confident, it can go either way. It’s disappointing.
“We were hoping to have this finalised now and have an opportunity to play in the play-offs as we were reinstated to 15th position (by Fisher's judgement).”