Cape Town City chairman John Comitis has explained why his team went to FNB Stadium on Saturday despite Kaizer Chiefs stating they were unable to host the match.
Comitis’ team followed all protocols but arrived at FNB Stadium at locked gates along with the match officials.
They ended up doing all their pre-match checks with the match officials inside the team bus and left around 20 minutes after 18:00 – the scheduled kick-off time – after Chiefs did not appear.
Amakhosi had stated beforehand they would be “unable to host” the DStv Premiership match after a Covid outbreak at Naturena.
They stated 31 members of the club’s staff were affected and iDiski Times has learned they only had nine players, three of them being goalkeepers, available for selection.
Comitis, though, insisted that the PSL did not postpone the match and responded to Chiefs’ letters in writing, saying they must adhere to the fixture.
“Let me start by saying that nobody underestimates the severity of the crisis that Kaizer Chiefs have experienced, and nobody is indicating that we not sympathetic with the matter and obviously the risks that are involved with it,” he told Mike Makaab on Gagasi FM.
“We’ve been in this pandemic for over two years now. But we fought hard to getting people back online and to get back onto the pitch. And to follow certain protocols.
“From that day, we all have had experiences of cases along the way, where we have had to leave one or two players out sometimes more than that. I mean, it’s happened quite clearly with many clubs that have even up to 5, 6, 7 players (out) at any one time.
“And we’ve played through this, and we’ve played through this, because we follow certain protocols that have been set up by the league for us and that’s how the remaining world plays the game. We cannot shut down the game because of this pandemic, we fought hard to be able to bring back the game and keep the industry alive.
“So now we faced with an excessive crisis of the same thing. The rules are very clear, though. Covid-19 cannot and will not be used as excessive circumstances.
“So the mind all of us, and if we know clearly, we’ve had two cases of the situation where it was quite severe cases of COVID. And both those teams lost the points. And it’s not about the points to me. I mean, to me, we weren’t happy to win the game in that fashion. That’s not what it was about.
“But in the absence of any other rule, we as a club in the PSL have to follow the rules and to have to follow the protocol on Match Day. So the exco wasn’t in a position to be making a determination on this, other than the fact that the day, on Friday, when the request was put in by chiefs to the PSL, for postponement, the request was denied in writing.
“As of after that we as a club couldn’t do anything other than abide to the rules. We received no correspondence at all, telling us anything, that we shouldn’t be there. So we went to the game and we followed whatever procedure would normally required of us on a match day.
“Unfortunately, Chiefs were not able to or chose not to appear and made that call on their own. And now there’s consequences for that.”
Comitis also confirmed that the PSL expo, excluding members of clubs that are involved in this case (Cape Town City, Kaizer Chiefs and Golden Arrows) met on Monday to discus a way forward.
