August 1 PSL restart – SAFA

The South African Football Association (SAFA) has approved a new restart date for the Premier Soccer League (PSL) of August 1, 2020. The date was announced after wide consultations with relevant stakeholders and is one the association believes will allow match officials to achieve optimum fitness levels.

SAFA said in a statement:

“On Friday, 10 July 2020, the SAFA WORKING GROUP met their PSL counterparts to deliberate and finalise the date on resumption of play.”

“The meeting continued on Monday, 13 July 2020 where it was noted that:

“According to the Referees Sub-Committee of the Technical Committee, the first week of August 2020 is the appropriate date for the commencement of NSL matches.”

“The choice of Gauteng Province as the host of training and match venues, as well as hotels, was agreed to by the government and NSL and that SAFA had no input to this process.”

“The 110 match officials will be subjected to medical and mandatory fitness test. The medical examination specifically entails testing for COVID-19 and those who test negative would be required to undergo a mandatory 14-day fitness test under the guidance of the FIFA approved fitness trainer. A FIFA fitness consultant participated in the discussion.”

“The fitness trainer initially wanted a three-week fitness period but both parties mutually agreed on an accelerated period of training of two weeks in order to meet the beginning of August commencement date

“In the meantime, once the Compliance Officers have completed their report, it will be submitted to the government to gazette on the return to play date.”

“The world football government body, FIFA has accepted that it is the government responsibility to approve the return to play date and we will update FIFA on the progress achieved.”