Royal AM will appeal PSL decision in promotion row

Royal AM have made good on their promises to fight the decision to award Sekhukhune United the GladAfrica Championship title.

The KwaZulu-Natal club have submitted an urgent application to the High Court appealing the decision.

The PSL had confirmed on Saturday 12 June that Sekhukhune had been promoted to the Premiership after Royal AM’s challenge of Hilton Epstein’s ruling was dismissed.

Royal AM will appeal PSL decision

In a document leaked to Soccer Laduma Royal AM outlined their motivation for filing the appeal against Premier Soccer League DC Hilton Epstein’s decision.

1. There are other compelling reasons why the appeal should be heard, more particularly in that, the are conflicting arbitration awards and certainty is required.
2. Royal AM FC was already placed as log leaders and automatic qualifiers to the Premier Soccer League and therefore enjoyed the legal right of incumbency and legal occupier of that position.
3. Royal won the Championship on the field of play which is in keeping with the universal culture of football and the best interest of football stakeholders, including players and supporters.
4. Sekhukhune United FC ought to have been penalized and not unjustly rewarded and enriched with promotion when it had surreptitiously reconfigured its protest from a Rule 35.2 charge to a contrived “ineligibility offence” and the “fielding of an ineligible player”, both of which were inapplicable.
5. There are reasonable prospects of success, in the circumstances, that another court may and/or will come to a different conclusion.

The background

Royal AM finished the season on top of the National First Division at the end of the season but the Premier Soccer League awarded Sekhukhune United three points after Polokwane City were found guilty of contravening the rules of the GladAfrica Championship earlier in the season.

The issue in part stems from the breach of rules by Polokwane City, but the PSL, triggered this debacle when they opted to appeal their own Disciplinary Committee’s not to award the match points to Sekhukhune United.