Rubbish!

I am now convinced that the country’s football is doomed. In fact, I have given up on the administration of the local game.

Local football under the current National Football Association of Swaziland (NFAS) regime is ruined. And from the look of things there is no salvation unless the NFAS executive does the right thing and resign – en masse that is.
No, football in Swaziland is a mess and what’s worse is that it is about to get nastier.
Adam ‘Bomber’ Mthethwa and his men at Sigwaca House have made so many unpopular decisions in the past but the latest is below low.

Who in his right senses would endorse such a move that allows clubs to register seven foreign players when the very same NFAS is quick to remind everyone that the sport is still being played in an amateur set up?
The announcement by the NFAS CEO, Frederick Mngomezulu on Friday last week to the effect that local clubs can now register seven foreigners and are also eligible to play all seven at the same time in one game is not only sickening but plain irrational.

It is utter rubbish, garbage if you prefer.
Whosever came up with this weird idea is an enemy of the local game. I could not help but marvel at our sister newspaper, the Swazi News headline, which screamed ‘United Nations League’. This is exactly what all concerned parties have endorsed. Soon and very soon we will be watching a United Nations League. And for what?

Indeed, things are about to get worse for the local game in many aspects. Of course, the enemies of the game will not realise this now because their selfish goals would have been achieved and sadly at the expense of the game.
I still cannot understand how the so-called custodians of the local game would allow teams and their ilk to tear into shreds the Piggs Peak Declaration hardly six months down the line.

Spare me the two thirds majority jargon because we all know that had the NFAS been opposed to this, it never would have materialised. We have seen it happen before.
Let me refresh your memory. In June last year, on June 27 to be precise, all the football stakeholders wasted each other’s time, the tax payer’s money and assembled at the Orion Hotel where they planned on how to take the sport donkey years back. I say donkey years back because this is exactly how that meeting has turned out to be.

The declaration had called upon the FA to reduce the foreign quota of players from five to three. This should have been effected in the beginning of the 2011/12 season – next season in short.  So, what has bought about the change?

Why the sudden change of heart? What and where is the urgency that could have prompted such a move? If the NFAS and all concerned were ready to reduce the number of players by next season six months ago, what has changed now for them to realise that they had made a blunder when we all hailed what we thought was the right step towards professionalism?

The strange thing is that the NFAS CEO assured all who cared to listen that the quota will again be reduced at the start of the 2012/2013 season.
Funny is it not that the latest policy will only last for two seasons. What purpose does it then serve? What will it do to the local players? What about Sihlangu? Will the national team selectors have a sufficient pool to choose from?
To me, this smacks of corruption at its best. It appears the NFAS and the General Assembly were out to please themselves at the expense of the sport.

If the NFAS would endorse such move for only two seasons, what is it that they hope to have achieved by 2012?
This is the same organisation that recently announced that it had hired a new Technical Director in Boy ‘Bizzah’ Mkhonta.
What about Mkhonta’s programmes? It basically means Mkhonta should have been hired in 2012 because as I see it, there would be no development in the local game for the next two years or so.
The reason is very simple. The NFAS and the Premier League of Swaziland have no instrument that allows either organisation to screen foreign players that come and join local sides.

It will not be surprising therefore to see these foreign nationals, some of who are in the country illegally plying their traded in the Premiership. The league would degenerate and collapse into one sick United Nations League where rejects from other countries would have a field day and in the process fail to add value to our football.
If this is not sick, then nothing is.

We all know how inefficient both the PLS and NFAS are when it comes to serious matters. There is no way these organisations would be in a position to design a screening programme that will allow only the best or rather acceptable foreign players before they are allowed to sign on the dotted line and be registered as PLS players. Instead, all these foreign thugs masquerading as footballers would come here and try their luck. Now, will that be good for the game?

I really fail to understand this garbage.
Why didn’t the NFAS CEO then tell the world that we may as well forget about seeing Sihlangu making an impact in the forthcoming major football events like the 2012 AFCON Qualifiers and the 2014 World Cup Qualifiers?
Where will the Sihlangu players come from when only four places would be available for the local players to compete for a starting berth in their respective clubs?

Everyone who calls himself/herself a football leader should burry their sorry heads in shame for such an ill timed and unwise move.
However, mark my words, posterity will judge each of these so harshly they would wish they were never born for such an irrational move. They would be judged for playing a major role in destroying the little of what is left of the sport.
It is sick!