Times Of Swaziland: WHAT A FOOTBALL INJUSTICE

WHAT A FOOTBALL INJUSTICE
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BY LWAZI DLAMINI on 27/02/2015 07:29:00


MBABANE – The verdict by the Vusi Maziya-led National Football Association of
Swaziland (NFAS) Disciplinary Committee that the December 7, 2014 Mbabane derby
be replayed has laid bare the dark side of local football for all to see.
Those who have followed local game for years now need no reminder of how dirty
the politics of the game are and how they stole the beautiful game. We all know
how one team has benefited over years by having their officials littered in the
football corridors of power – and at high government offices - subverting the
truth, shifting the goal-posts and getting favours even from match officials.
This status quo is as old as the game itself. As a result, some of the
dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists who support this team, invariably believe
football belongs to them – and the rest can go fly a kite.  The shift in the
balance of power, in particular with the advent of the Premier League of
Swaziland (PLS) Board of Governors and Executive Committee – under a new
structure – has been a pain in their posterior.
For years, they have made numerous attempts to bring back football “in our
hands” through a Management Committee where they can then put their own people
in place to run the Premier League of Swaziland (PLS). They just cannot accept
that this is not 1980 – it’s 2015 and things change. They are new role
players in the landscape of Swazi football. It is giving them sleepless nights.
For all I care, they can go drown in the nearest pond. Football is not them. It
is the people’s game.
In the chamber of chaos that is the South African Parliament, that enfant
terrible Julius Malema cries about ‘bring back our money’ to Msholozi, they
are crying about ‘bring back our football’ to the PLS, directed mainly to
its chairman Victor ‘Maradona’ Gamedze, the persona-non-grata of local
football.