Highlands Park crowned NFD champions as Black Leopards and Jomo Cosmos seal play-off spots

Even though there were no decent crowd at the Athlone Stadium on Sunday afternoon, Highlands Park were nevertheless crowned National First Division (NFD) champions for the 2017/18 season.

The champions finished off the season on a high note as they managed to reach 69 points after beating Stellenbosch FC 3-0 in their final match of the campaign.

Meanwhile, Black Leopards will join Jomo Cosmos in the PSL/NFD play-offs as two representatives from the NFD. Leopard hammered Comos 3-0 on Sunday to seal their passage to the play-offs.

Jomo Cosmos had already booked their spot in the plays-offs by beating Super Eagles last week.

While other teams are celebrating promotion and play-off qualification, at end of the table, things are no looking good as Super Eagles and Mthatha Bucks were relegated to the ABC Motsepe League.

Uthongathi FC and Richards Bay FC fought hard to escape relegation as they both won their respective matches.

In other matches played on Sunday, Royal Eagles defeated Witbank Spurs 1-0 and Cape Town All Stars eased past Real Kings 2-1. All stars will begin next season in a new name (Swallows FC) as the team has been sold.

The play-off games are scheduled to begin on May 16 with the final match set to take place on June 2, 2018.

Both Leopards and Cosmos will play three matches home and away as per the rules.

They will find out this coming weekend which PSL club will join in the play-offs. 

Ajax Cape Town, SuperSport United, Polokwane City and Baroka FC are all involved in the battle to avoid finishing 15th on the log.