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All systems go for 2018/2019 ABSA Premiership season

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The 2018/2019 ABSA Premiership season will kick-off as planned next Saturday, following Ajax Cape Town’s decision to withdraw their application for an urgent interdict and section 18 in the Johannesburg High Court on Thursday.

Earlier, the Premier Soccer League and Ajax appeared before judge Denise Fisher who granted the league leave to appeal her earlier decision to reinstate the relegated Cape Town club to 15th place on the ABSA Premiership log.

Two cases were scheduled to be heard at the Johannesburg High Court, but the court ended up hearing three cases.

The first was the PSL’s leave to appeal against the ruling that Ajax Cape Town be reinstated to 15th place, and not relegated automatically to the National First Division for fielding Zimbabwean International Tendai Ndoro.

Judge Fisher duly granted the PSL leave to appeal and set aside the decision by arbitrator William Mokhari to dock points that Ajax accumulated from matches Tendai Ndoro featured in.

That decision meant that Platinum Stars who finished last on the log, were elevated to 15th spot which enabled them to take part in the recently concluded promotion play-offs. Amazulu who were demoted to ninth spot on the log, after finishing on eighth initially, were also represented in court.

PSL legal representative Dennis Sibuyi explained the implications of today’s outcome in court.

“The first matter that was called by the court was an application for leave to appeal that was brought by the PSL, the court gave PSL a right to appeal and the second application that was meant to be argued is the interdict application where Ajax wanted to interdict the start of the league. Ajax has withdrawn the application, what does that mean it simply means that the league will commence, the Board of Governors has taken that the league is going to go ahead it will go ahead.”

Following the ruling, Ajax decided to withdraw it’s application for an urgent interdict to stop the league season from commencing next weekend.

Sibuyi described the events that unfolded at court today as victory for the PSL and emphasises that the league has a right to appeal judge Fisher’s initial finding.

“PSL has a right to appeal to the full bench, by the full bench we mean three court judges which the judge president is going to put together before the very same court. It depends on the judge president, we will approach the judge president the PSL will cooperate. We have already written to the judge president to require that the matter be expedited”.

Ajax then also withdrew their section 18 application to reinstate the club to 15th place on the Premiership log, pending the outcome of the appeal hearing.

“Section 18 application which was brought by Ajax – the purpose of that section is that even if the league is successful in getting the leave to appeal the decision of judge Fisher should remain, in a sense that even though you have to go ahead and appeal that decision has been given by the judge which is being appealed stands.”

It seems the Tendai Ndoro saga which has been dragging on for almost five months, is now nearing its conclusion. Ajax who have already spent millions of rands in an attempt to resolve this case, have been ordered to also pay all the costs for Thursday’s court sittings.

The next avenue available for Ajax is to take the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland.

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