IN GAME ABANDONED OVER AMBULANCE: PLE ORDERS 45MIN REPLAY

MBABANE - There will be no disciplinary hearing for Madlenya and Manzini Sea Birds for their abandoned MTN Premier League game.

Instead, a scraped off rule to have a match played for the remainder of the time left when it was abandoned has been resurrected. Madlenya and Sea Birds had their game abandoned at half-time with the former leading 2-0 at KaLanga Technical Centre. Sea Birds allegedly refused to continue with the match upon seeing that there was no ambulance and emergency services personnel at the venue, which were to be provided by the host team.
Initially, the match kicked off a few minutes later than its scheduled kick-off time, and both teams agreed to play until the ambulance and its personnel arrived at the stadium, but it did not until it was time for the second-half. The match officials had to call off the match.

Source

“Madlenya and Sea Birds are going to play their last 45 minutes next Wednesday at KaLanga; I’m just not sure we still have this rule in our football,” an impeccable source said. Upon checking with Madlenya, who would have at least expected a replay of 90 minutes or game forfeiture according to the current league regulations and a fine for having caused the abandonment of the match by merely failing to provide the required emergency services, the decision by the PLE was confirmed. “We have received the fixture directing us to finish our game against Sea Birds next Wednesday at KaLanga at 3pm.

“We’re ready and we’ll definitely honour the fixture,” said Nolwazi Gamedze, who is Madlenya’s Public Relations Officer (PRO).She said while she was not certain what the rules entailed here as she would have to revisit them, she was certain they would honour the fixture as per the PLE directive. Sea Birds PRO Thabiso Cebe could not be immediately available for comment despite efforts to reach him.PLE Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kenneth Makhanya said they had the referee and match commissioner’s reports pointing to themselves as having taken the decision to stop the match.
“I believe all teams have got the correspondence and a press release is being prepared too,” Makhanya responded when asked about the decision and why this matter was not referred to the Disciplinary Committee (DC).

Quoted

in yesterday’s publication, Makhanya was quoted saying games must go ahead even without ambulances or emergency services at the stadiums, particularly where the PLE secretariat would have tried and failed to get one. Both teams will be expected to have a car ready for the same duties the ambulance would do. These include transporting players, officials and fans to the hospital as ordered by teams doctors. Failure to play will lead to three points and three goals forfeited to the other team and a fine of E50 000 for first time offenders, if found guilty.

However, Madlenya and Sea Birds seem not to have undergone the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) DC as per the current rules would require. The rule in question is Article 7.22.“Where a game is abandoned by the conduct of a participating team in this competition or its players, fans, officials and/or supporters and after a disciplinary hearing the team is found guilty of having caused the abandonment of the game, then such team shall lose the match, with three points and three goals awarded to their opponents,” reads the article in part.

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