Cape Town Spurs turn to the courts again

This matter relates to Advocate Hilton Epstein’s arbitration ruling last Tuesday, which dismissed Spurs and JDR’s application to find Durban City guilty of having played an improperly registered player against them.

Rule 52.2 of the NSL Handbook is likely to be one of the sticking points in court and Sports Law Expert Mandla Tshabalala of Mandla Tshabalala Inc, argues why it was important for the Premier Soccer League to introduce it.

"Well, it was important so that you give people time frame because if it’s not, it does not give people time frame within a specific time that you lodge all these complaints. You'd leave it open then it will be like a banana republic, anybody can just lodge a complaint way after the season has completed,” Tshabalala said.

“It will be a chaos and it would have disrupted the proceedings of the league, even now probably there would have been lots of complaints brought if there was no time frame.

“The rules provide a time frame that you should be able to lodge a complaint or protest, if not, my opinion, it would be a chaos. It will just be ungovernable, the league will be overwhelmed with complaints and protests because everybody will just have time."

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Rule 52.2 of the NSL Handbook reads, If a complaint relates to a player's registration, the complaint must be lodged no later than 40 days after the date of the closure of the registration period, during which that registration was made.

The two cubs alleged that City’s Saziso Magawana was not supposed to have been cleared by Marumo Gallants, but the team to which they sold their MFC status, Leruma Stars.

However, having listened to arguments from the two legal teams during the hearing, the arbitrator ruled in favour of City.

However, Tshabalala still believes that the PSL should tighten its rules and points to Rule 52.4, which reads, notwithstanding the provisions of this rule (52.2), no complaint may be lodged more than five days after the last league competition fixture of the applicable division.

"And in fact, I wish they could do more in as far as the five days one is concerned. Well, the 40 days, it says 40 days after the registration period has expired, it's very clear, if 40 days has expired then you cannot lodge a complaint, its very literal,” he explained.

“But now when you go to the five one, I think 42.3 then it becomes a problem that you can still lodge a protest in five days but me sitting here trying to interpret it, I would say it simply says for any other misconduct or alleged misconduct but then someone comes and says I was not aware of this misconduct up until the end of the season.

“Now, that's where the five days comes in and says yeah, you were not aware but you still have five days to protest and you can lodge your complaint. That's how I read it and it also creates a problem."

Spurs will be losing more than a R500,000 monthly grant and at least R2 million in preparation fees before the start of the season in the National First Division (NFD). They are dropping down to an ABC Motsepe League provincial league, where teams haven’t been paid their annual grant of just R30,000 for nearly three years.