The Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) has suspended the domestic football calendar as the country prepares for next month’s harmonized Presidential, parliamentary and local government polls and matches will only resume on the weekend of April 6, a statement from the game’s governing body stated.

Zimbabwe Football Association

However, the international clubs tie for Dynamos in the African Champions League at Gwanzura on Sunday remains on schedule.

ZRP senior assistant commissioner (operations) Faustino Mazango had earlier asked Zifa to consider shelving all football matches under their auspices for now.

"We write to inform you that due to the forthcoming harmonized elections, all PSL matches be postponed. This measure has been necessitated by security concerns," read part of the letter signed by Mazango to Rushwaya.

"By copy of this correspondence, I hereby inform you that all association’s football matches have been postponed with immediate effect to the date after the weekend of 29 and 30 March 2008. The postponement has been occasioned by an instruction from the Zimbabwe Republic Police in view of the March 29, 2008 harmonized general elections. However, the international match between Dynamos FC and Costa Do Sol of Mozambique shall go ahead as scheduled. Any inconvenience caused is sincerely regretted," Rushwaya wrote.

But PSL fixtures secretary Godfrey Japajapa was not surprised:

"The police may have a right to see the games being postponed but ZIFA should have appealed against this order. I think ZIFA should have convinced the police that football games are just football games. But as law abiding citizens and the PSL being a law abiding organization, we have cancelled our games," he said.

"This will put further pressure on our scheduling. We had started our season late and now we are losing another opportunity to cover up. It means now we have to find two weekends to cover for these (postponed) matches," said Japajapa.

With the national team set to regroup for the 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign as well as the newly-introduced African Nations Championships, the PSL fixtures programme will be further congested.

"We had resolved to take a break whenever the national team is playing but with the turn of events, we could be forced to review that resolution. Maybe our matches will still go ahead even if the national team is playing. History has shown that the foreign-based players make up the majority and in that likelihood we might continue with the PSL games," said Japajapa.

The PSL, Japajapa said, might consider mid-week games to avoid their programme spilling into December.

"There is the CBZ FA Cup matches as well as a knockout tournament being worked by the PSL to consider. And if we delay the games again, we risk the league spilling into 2009 for sure," he said.

The Pacific Eastern Region Division One matches had been set to kick-off this weekend but the region’s administrator Thaddeus Machawira said they would respect the ZIFA and police orders.

"We are going to stick to the orders but this is coming at a huge price for us. It means we have to find slots to put these games. As a region, we had hoped to give a perfect football menu over the holiday," said Machawira.

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