‘Humiliated’ Kadodia awaits PSL to confirm Durban City’s promotion

After the protests against Durban City were dismissed on Monday and the club officially promoted to the Betway Premiership, chair Farook Kadodia says he has never endured such humiliation in his administrative career as being denied the trophy in the final day.

City are finally the official champions of the Motsepe Foundation Championship (MFC) after an arbitration dismissed two cases against them.

The trophy and prize money were not presented to the Durban club after they clinched the title in the final game with a 1-0 win against Cape Town Spurs at Athlone Stadium on May 18 that also relegated their opposition.

The Premier Soccer League (PSL) said then a trophy would not be presented pending cases brought by JDR Stars and Spurs over the alleged improper registration of winger Saziso Magawana by the KwaZulu-Natal team.

“We were denied the opportunity of celebrating and showing everybody we won the league fairly,” Kadodia told Sowetan on Wednesday.

“There was no trophy handover, no medals — players worked hard the whole year and were denied that opportunity.

“[On] the arbitration award, we were very confident the player was registered correctly and that's why we played him for 27 matches. If we had any doubt about the player, we wouldn't have played.

“We are happy [but] now we are waiting for the PSL to recognise our promotion. We've not received any communication from them whatsoever. Once that comes in, I will make a different statement.”

Kadodia insisted that there was no point when his club panicked during the case as they knew they had done things correctly.

“The only issue I was very disappointed about was this kind of case came out from JDR and I have my reservations about how it came up because, at the end of the day, the club suffered a lot of humiliation,” he said.

“Certain areas of the media were fully supportive of the case and were repeating that Durban City could get relegated and we would be punished by deducting points and so on.

“In my entire career of football, [and] I have been with the PSL since 2003, I have never endured this kind of humiliation.”

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