Soccer Entry Only On Merit

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32322, 13 June 1970, Page 13

Soccer Entry Only On Merit

(By

Our Soccer Reporter)

There will be no easy way into the Rothmans iNational Soccer League, either for next season when the competition is from eight to 'lO teams, or in succeeding years when automatic relegation is instituted.

This principle has been reaffirmed by the national league committee, which has stated the means by which the competition will be enlarged next year. The two new teams for the 1971 tournament will be determined by the holding of a play-off between the winners of the three regional leagues.

In the event of the winner of a particular regional league not wishing to take part in the play-off, the run-ner-up in that ■ competition will be offered the opportunity. The play-off will be staged on a home-and-away basis, each team playing the other two on one travelling weekend. One match would be played on the Saturday and the other on the following Monday night In the succeeding years, when the entry is confined to 10 teams, the regional league champions and the bottom club in the national league will meet in a play-off series to fill the single vacancy left by the relegated club. The committee has thus affirmed that entry into the national league will be gained only on merit and will preclude any area seeking special

rights by entering a combined side.

A combination of clubs will still be able to take part in the play-off series, but one of the teams in the union will first have to qualify through the regional league. There have been reports of Otago seeking an entry for a combined side next year. Under the committee’s ruling, a Dunedin club would have to win the southern league this season before it could unite with others for the playoff.

A similar move to Otago’s has been made in Taranaki, where the provincial association is to run a newly-formed club, Mount Egmont, backed by the exisitng clubs in the New Plymouth area. The new club will now have to win a qualifying place through the central league.

The committee’s ruling also

existed last year, when the combined ChristchurchUnited team was accepted into the initial season of the national league. One of United's participating clubs, Technical, won the southern league, to make the entry of the combined team legal.

The committee has also turned down a suggestion to start a second division in the 1972 season, delegates having no intimation from their clubs and associations of any real support having been raised for the scheme.

The closing date for entries into the national league in 1971 will be August 31 of this year, which is also the closing date for any of the present eight clubs to withdraw from the competition. Failure on the part of the latter clubs to comply with this rule would cost them $5OO.