FOREIGNERS WON’T BE RECRUITED FOR SIHLANGU

MBABANE – The Ministry of Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs will not go out of its way to ‘recruit’ and naturalise foreigners for Sihlangu.

Minister David ‘Cruiser’ Ngcamphalala recently told parliamentarians that his ministry did not have the legal instrument to do that. In his response, after parliamentarians wanted to know why the ministry was not naturalising foreigners, who are considered good players so they could play for Sihlangu, Ngcamphalala explained that individual players should apply for citizenship before they could be considered for the squad.
He was interviewed yesterday to shed light on his response to Parliament on the matter.

“Unfortunately the powers of granting one Swazi citizenship are not vested on my ministry. It is a process that falls on another ministry’s lap. The foreign players who could be interested in playing for any of the country’s national teams should apply individually to the relevant ministry and go through the whole process.

“It is only after that particular player is granted the Swazi citizenship that he can be considered for the national teams selection. Otherwise only Swazis with the country’s citizenship are eligible. There is no way we can stop someone like that from playing for the squad but as I said earlier; it is not in my ministry’s scope to grant citizenship,” said Ngcamphalala.

Only one player in recent times, Stanford Ncube who hails from Zimbabwe, expressed his desire to play for Sihlangu a few years ago. He eventually applied for Swazi citizenship. However, Ncube who is now clubless after falling out with Moneni Pirates is unlikely to feature for the national squad, as he is already in the Indian Summer of his career.

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