Posted in News on Apr 01, 2002.
Kaizer Chiefs has expressed disappointment at the Confederation of African Football (Caf) for releasing a statement to the media about our expulsion even before we were notified about this.
We are very disappointed that a decision from CAF was released to the media before SAFA, PSL and ourselves received an official notification.
We are sad that we find ourselves victims of circumstances beyond our control, as this incident was Force Majeure.
It was our mission to defend the Mandela Cup with distinction.
Our expulsion will no doubt be a blow to our supporters and the Nation at large.
We pride ourselves of being the most professional club in the country and as such all the relevant bookings were made as soon as dates became known to us. We have all pertinent correspondence on record to support our case.
In the past CAF has been lenient to teams with travel problems on the African continent therefore we have strong reservation that CAF was not given the correct information by SAFA as we cannot possibly be held responsible for airlines canceling flights at the 11th hour. We feel that if we could have stated our case to CAF directly, the outcome could have been different.
We are disappointed, most of all, with the lack of support received from our Football Association. As per CAF regulations, communication relevant to CAF Interclub fixtures is the responsibility of the associations concerned. SAFA’s absenteeism during this crucial period become evident when we were inundated with communiqués from the Malagasy Football Association trying to get through to their offices unsuccessfully.
We are not confident that our association had assumed a proactive role in establishing the political situation in Madagascar in order to advise us accordingly. In so doing SAFA shrugged off all responsibility for our team’s safety and security.
We are confident that we did everything in our power to honour our fixture against US Transfoot on the 24th of March. We will go down in history as undefeated Mandela Cup Champions who were defeated off the pitch.
We are considering appealing against the decision.
In view of this and other factors, Kaizer Chiefs is considering an appeal to the matter.
Official Kaizer Chiefs Statement on expulsion from CAF Competitions as at 2nd April 2002
Our expulsion will no doubt be a blow to our supporters and the Nation at large.
