Premier Soccer League (PSL) chairman Farai Jere on Wednesday said that Premiership games are expected to resume next week.
On Monday, PSL suspended Premiership games in the wake of crowd trouble during a Dynamos versus Highlanders match at Barboufieldss Stadium the previous day.
The match was abandoned after fans invaded the pitch in the 90th minute after Highlanders had scored the only goal of the match.
Jere told state media that the suspension of Premiership matches was necessary to allow stakeholders to come together to find solutions to the problem of violence and hooliganism. Said, Jere:
It’s just one week, just this weekend. We don’t have time to waste. As far as I can repeat, it was very necessary to put everything on standby for just one week to make sure that we are all aligned.
Next week, matches are resuming. On Monday I am sure you will start to see the fixtures.
But we need to correct this problem and get ideas from everyone.
However, some clubs and football commentators argued that the decision to suspend the topflight league was unfair since hooliganism only involved Dynamos and Highlanders. Added Jere:
Let me tell you something about decisions when they’re being made. Ninety per cent of great decisions don’t please everyone, even at the household level. But in most cases, 90 per cent of those decisions will be correct.
A number of people who I spoke to and have been asking me why we came up with the decision, are now appreciating it, including the ZIFA vice-president.
He called me and said that he will support me wherever I am going, it was a noble decision.
At times lack of information creates information gaps and leads people to speculation, and we all have got a right to do that.
But our job as football leadership is to think and make decisions and then we are critiqued.
To fine the teams is the generic decision which we have in our files, which always happens but this time around we wanted to make it different and see if we can uproot this problem for good.
If it means that we need to increase the number of police at Highlanders or Dynamos matches, let it be because we will now be getting this information from the stakeholders whom we cannot answer on their behalf or who cannot give us their position just by imposing a fine to either team.