CFRA fixture abscondment fine up

Central Region Football Association (CRFA) has said fines for failing to fulfill a fixture to K250,000 from K50, 000.00.

CFRA Chairperson, Austin Ajawa made the announcement at CFRA AGM held on Saturday at Bridge View Hotel after a heated debate on the possible adjustment of the fines.

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He said previous when a team fails to fulfill a fixture was being fine K50, 000.

Ajawa said the meeting viewed the amount looked manageable by most teams which led to many unfulfilled fixtures.

He said one way of making sure that teams are encouraged to fulfill their fixture, the committee thought it was necessary to increase.

“Teams will only be fine twice if they fail to honour their fixture. If they will not honour it for the third time it means that teams will be removed from the league,” the Chair said.

District Football Committees were in support of the new proposal saying this would bring sanity in term of fixture implementation and control awarding of free points due to non fulfillment of fixtures.

However, representatives for the Clubs had suggested that the amount should remain the same or should be increased to K 150, 000.00 but it shoot down.

“We have teams that are capable of buying those fixtures for them to collect free points,” One Club official, Enock Phiri said.

He said they sometimes look at the cost of travel and the fine by weighing the two which forces them to travel in order to save.

The 2023 Chipiku football season is expected to have more games played than last year due to change in the play format.

The league will have 24 teams which will be divided into three groups and the top four teams will battle it out in the last 12 in order to identify a champion to be promoted to Super league.  

Chipiku Teams will play a total of 411 games unlike last season where they played 268 games.