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Irate Comitis fires salvo at PSL and says the league beat City 4-0‚ not Platinum Stars

Cape Town City owner John Comitis has lashed out at the Premier Soccer League (PSL) after his club was forced to play a league match just two days after returning from an arduous journey to the Telkom Knockout final in Polokwane.

City looked well off the pace in their 4-0 home mauling at the hands of struggling Platinum Stars on Tuesday night.

But the PSL have responded‚ saying the congested 2016/17 calendar means there is little room to move fixtures‚ and that Comitis and City accepted the Tuesday fixture at the start of the season knowing there could be a potential clash if they made the Telkom Knockout decider.

A livid Comitis said he had written to the PSL prior to the final against SuperSport United‚ asking for a postponement of the fixture‚ especially as they meet SuperSport again in the league on Friday.

But unlike City‚ SuperSport do not have a fixture in midweek and so will be much the fresher of the sides come their clash at the Cape Town Stadium in two days’ time.

“Take nothing away from them‚ Platinum Stars came here with a purpose and they won the game fair and square.

"They scored four good goals‚ we must take it on the chin and move on‚” Comitis said.

“But I think the PSL also beat us today and that’s not right.

"I asked the PSL before the final to consider postponing this game as a matter of Fair Play.

"As great an exhibition as the final was‚ this was equal in the opposite way.

“You cannot expect sportsmen to play a game of that calibre on a Saturday‚ travel the distance that we had to travel with Polokwane being an extra trip for us compared to SuperSport‚ and then we have to go and play SuperSport again on Friday while they have had a nice rest.

"I don’t think Fair Play was considered here.

“It’s not good for the game to see this kind of thing‚ we would have lost tonight even if we had played against their Diski team to be honest with the condition the players were in.

“It’s not good for the sportsmen and I think the PSL need to consider these kinds of things‚ like they did for Sundowns‚ allowing them enough to prepare for China [Japan].”

Comitis feels the PSL needs to be more flexible in reacting to circumstances and‚ as he terms it‚ apply their minds.

“When they looked at the fixtures‚ I don’t think they ever expected Cape Town City to be in the final‚ so they fixtured us on the Tuesday.

"But when we discovered that it is the case‚ I think we have to apply our minds a little bit deeper‚ thinking about the players.

“They make a living out of their condition so to subject them to this kind of stress is not reasonable. With the travel coming back‚ looking back now I would rather have played SuperSport in their own back-yard in Pretoria.

“I would have saved myself nine hours travel and perhaps we would have got something from the game today.

“There aren’t hard and fast rules about this‚ there should be a proper committee‚ with people that are football-minded‚ to assess a situation. What happened today was not a good thing for football.

"Cape Town City cannot lose 4-0 at home. I can tell you now we will play another 20 times and it will not happen again‚ it was because of the way we had to be conditioned after a final.”

PSL spokesman Lux September said the club should engage with the league rather than communicate through the media if they are unhappy. - TMG Digital

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