A highly anticipated play-off between the top Grahamstown and Bathurst soccer sides might be cancelled because it has emerged that one of the teams fielded an illegal player during their last match.
Grahamstown's Mighty Chiefs and Bathurst's Eleven United played a nail-biting game on Sunday 10 June that had to stop during extra-time because of poor light conditions.
While waiting to hear the date and venue of the rematch, that would decide which team goes on to play for Cacadu in next season's South African Football Association (Safa) SAB League, it was discovered that an Eleven Attackers player was still registered with another club.
Eleven attackers fielded the player during their last encounter and the Mighty Chiefs laid a complaint against them last week. This was confirmed by Mighty Chiefs assistant coach Jeff Budaza.
Makana LFA president Ayanda Kota, who is also chairperson of the SAB Cacadu disciplinary committee, said that the Bathurst team “committed an error by fielding a player that is still registered with one of our local teams – Lingelihle Football Club.
According to Kota, Mighty Chiefs will go straight through to the SAB League if they win the case, otherwise a final match will be played.
The teams now wait for SAB Cacadu officials to deal with matter, while the match has been placed on hold.
According to Safa rules, one player cannot play for two teams at the same time, even if they are in different leagues. A player must be released fully by one club before playing for another.
