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HUB ’DOWNS AYIYIFUNI PLAY-OFF!

20/02/2018 00:30:00 BY CHRIS DLAMINI

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MBABANE – Uyayifuna Na? is the tagline for this year’s SwaziBank Cup but already First Division League side Hub Sundowns are against tonight’s play-off match against First Division rivals Manzini Sea Birds.

Hub Sundowns have run to court as envisaged after they last Thursday instructed lawyers from SC Simelane Attorneys to write to the tournament’s tripartite being the PLS, FA and sponsor SwaziBank seeking clarity on how they were supposed to play a play-off when they were in First Division.

“The sponsorship agreement for 14 years has been the PLS teams from top flight and First Division are already qualified for the tournament. We didn’t get the clarity we were seeking from any party so we took a step further as our game is tomorrow (today),” said the club’s director Steve Horton yesterday.
Horton made it clear that as someone who had been part and parcel of the PLS, he was privy to the sponsorship agreement which their lawyers had also sought to be served with as well as this year’s tournament rules and regulations.

“I have served all three parties with our court papers. The PLS, FA and SwaziBank all received the court papers for an urgent application which we believe will be heard this morning given its urgency. We are only stopping our game instead of both games,” Horton confirmed.

Hub Sundowns had said on Friday that they expected to get satisfactory clarification or else the matter would be argued in a court of law. As it turns out, Horton said they never received any correspondence for either of three parties.

They are due to play Sea Birds at Mavuso Sports Centre tonight at 6:30pm before another clash between Milling Hot Spurs, another First Division League side against Lubombo Super League’s Rangers to determine the two teams to make the Last 32. The winner between Hub and Sea Birds will play Green Mamba while in the other game Mbabane Swallows are waiting.

Interestingly, the SwaziBank Cup is similar to the Ingwenyama Cup which, however, dealt with this problem way before its launch and draw such that only the regional teams had play-offs to qualify for the Sincephetelo MVA Fund sponsored knockout tournament and Hub are contesting that this was one of the reasons they were stunned as same route would easily have been followed in the SwaziBank Cup.