DURBAN – The Premier Soccer League (PSL) action is set to return early next month and not this coming weekend as league initially planned.
This was revealed in a statement released by South African Football Association (Safa) on Tuesday afternoon.
According to the letter that was sent by the PSL acting CEO (Mato Madlala) to the acting CEO of Safa, (Tebogo Motlanthe) last week Friday, the league was planning to reboot the local season this coming weekend.
However, this is no longer the case after some deliberations between the two organisations.
Safa released a statement detailing the return of PSL action which is set for August.
“The South African Football Association (Safa) worked on processes outlined in the return to play protocol which was submitted and agreed by the government. Subsequently, the government issued a regulation in terms of the Government Gazette.
On June 11, the Minister of Sport (Nathi Mthethwa) sent a letter to SAFA that they should appoint the Compliance Officer to oversee the entire process of return to training and return to play protocols,” the Safa statement read.
"SAFA duly appointed Dr Thulani Ngwenya and Mlungisi Ncame as the compliance officers to liaise with the National Soccer League (NSL). It was further agreed that the two teams from the Association and NSL, comprising of the respective CEOs and Compliance Officers, work together on processes for resumption of football, both for training and play."
The games will be completed in Gauteng behind closed doors. All the 32 clubs will be in, what is now know as a 'bio bubble' environment.
“On Friday, July 10, the Safa working group met their PSL counterparts to deliberate and finalise the date on resumption of play. The meeting continued on Monday, July 13, where it was noted that according to the Referees Sub-Committee of the Technical Committee, the first week of August 2020 is the appropriate date for the commencement of NSL matches,” the Safa statement continued.
The PSL action has been on grinding halt since mid-March.
“The 110 match officials will be subjected to medical and mandatory fitness test. The medical examination specifically entails testing for covid-19 and those who test negative would be required to undergo a mandatory 14-day fitness test under the guidance of the Fifa approved fitness trainer. A Fifa fitness consultant participated in the discussion,” Safa stated.
PSL clubs are now back at training working diligently for the return of the action.
"The fitness trainer initially wanted a three-week fitness period but both parties mutually agreed on an accelerated period of training of two weeks in order to meet the beginning of August commencement date."
In the meantime, once the Compliance Officers have completed their report, it will be submitted to the government to gazette on the return to play date.
The world football government body, Fifa has accepted that it is the government responsibility to approve the return to play date and we will update Fifa on the progress achieved.” Safa concluded.