Following their decision to withdraw their bid to stop the new Absa Premiership season, Ajax Cape Town have accepted their relegation to the National First Division after fielding an ineligible player.
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The Urban Warriors’ CEO Ari Efstathiou held a press conference at Ikamva on Friday afternoon to announce the club’s decision.
The Mother City-based outfit withdrew their application to interdict the start of the 2018-19 campaign on Thursday.
This came after the Premier Soccer League (PSL) had been granted leave to appeal the High Court decision to set aside the judgement of advocate William Mokhari against Ajax.
Mokhari had ruled that the Urban Warriors should be docked points for fielding an ineligible player in striker Tendai Ndoro, which effectively consigned Ajax’s relegation to the NFD.
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Speaking to the media, Efstathiou said: ‘I didn’t want to make a comment after yesterday because I thought it would be important to come to you with our thoughts.
‘On the club’s side, unfortunately, once again, we have seen a lot of situations like this. Time and legal procedure have basically trumped justice and we feel very strongly about that.
‘We still believe we followed the rules. We played him when we were supposed to play him. Unfortunately, the process got complicated.
‘We ended up with seven court appearances. It is a process that went on for five months. We have been at the top and bottom of the rollercoaster. Yesterday was unfortunate where the time issue of the league and the way the court process went.
‘And now we are forced to take our place in the NFD unless something happens during the appeal process, but the process can take anything from four to 12 weeks.
‘But we did fight for the truth and what we believe was right,’ Efstathiou concluded.
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Meanwhile, Ajax’s lawyer, advocate Norman Arendse, insisted that Judge Denise Fisher’s decision to grant the PSL leave to appeal on Thursday forced the club to withdraw their interdict.
‘When Fisher allowed the appeal against her judgement‚ that immediately affected our chances of the interdict. We would have had little chance‚’ Arendse said.
‘The interdict was designed to have playoffs replayed‚ but that was always going to be a difficult ask.
‘If we argued a losing case, we could have had harsh costs ordered against us. In light of that‚ Ari took a difficult and emotional decision‚ but the right one‚ to withdraw,’ he concluded.