It’s injustice if Wizards Will be Promoted

By:  Andrew Cane Chilapondwa

A renowned football commentator Patrick Simango says it will be total ‘injustice’ if Wizards FC are promoted into the Premier League by default.

Speaking during a mid-week sports program on MBC, Simango said it was proper for Super League of Malawi (Sulom) to have 15 teams in the 2016 season because the procedure in coming up with 16^th  team has been compromised.

“It will be total injustice if Wizards are given an automatic place in the top flight by default. If we want justice, let’s have a league of 15 teams because the process of coming up with 16^th team has been compromised by Dedza Young Soccer’ refusal to take part in the promotion play offs,” he said.

However, he advised Sulom to have a two leg tie between Airborne Rangers and Wizards FC if having a 15 league team proves to be a difficult task. “Then Sulom must have a two leg tie between Airborne Rangers and Wizards FC if they fail to have a 15 league team but it will be a very big mistake to allow Wizards FC to play in the league by default,” he advised.

But his counterpart David Kapezi said it was not proper to punish Wizards FC and Airborne Rangers for Dedza Young Soccer’ sins.

“When a team fails to show up at a match venue,  it losses points. Dedza didn’t show up, why would Sulom punish Wizards and Airborne?” “They were given a chance to redeem themselves by Sulom’s appeals committee but they refused, it’s not Airborne or Wizards’s fault so it won’t be proper to punish the two teams,” he said.

The Malawi Star published a report on Wednesday morning indicating that Wizards FC are back into the top flight following Dedza’s decision to withdraw from the promotion play offs.

Last year, during an Extraordinary General Meeting between Sulom and its affiliates, a decision was made to have 16 teams in the top flight but the meeting never came up with an idea of coming up with the said number of teams.

Things got worse when Dedza obtained a Court Injunction restraining Sulom from going ahead with the playoffs by claiming that they deserved an automatic place for finishing better than Airborne and Wizards FC.

Sulom was then told by Justice Charles Mkandawire to hear Dedza’ grievances before proceeding with the playoffs but lost the case when Sulom’s appeals committee ruled in favor of the football administrators.