‘BULL’, ‘WESLIANS’ OVER E500 000 DEBT TO PLS

MBABANE – Win the Swazi Telecom Charity Cup and forfeit E300 000 of the E950 000 champions’ prize – that is the sad story for Mbabane Highlanders.

Sad as it is but it is even worse for Manzini Wanderers who are not in the tournament, yet they have an outstanding debt of over E200 000. Both giant teams owe the PLS in loans and fines, money the organisation will deduct from any income they make – be it prizes or even the television rights grants.

Initially, it had been believed the PLS had written off all owed loans amounting to E700 000 but it has since be clarified that these are not current or recent loans.
“The loans we wrote off and reported about in the AGM date back to 2012, otherwise teams which took loans recently still have to pay us. Currently, the huge chunk of owed loans is from Highlanders and Wanderers,” he said.
Questioned specifically on the Highlanders’ E300 000 given to the club during the transition of management, after then Managing Director Bheki ‘Rubber’ Simelane’s unceremonious departure, following a fans’ attack at Somhlolo National Stadium, he said that one stands.

“Highlanders will pay us E300 000 which is a loan, while Wanderers will repay us E134 000 loan and when we include fines, they will pay up to slightly over E200 000.
‘‘These are monies we will deduct from prizes and the television rights as reported in one of the dailies last week,” he explained.

Vilakati said they were also positive that the PLS’ mechanism to deduct gate collections from all owing clubs worked well for them. He said by March last year, the balance was E700 000 but now it was less than E294 000 in fines only.
Other clubs that had owed loans but now settled are Midas City, Malanti, Tambuti and Amalanda but their figures ranged between E10 000 and E15 000 which was easily payable.

However, efforts to get comments from both clubs proved futile as Highlanders’ PRO Paul ‘Magidzeludzakeni’ Masilela and Wanderers’ outgoing General Manager, Patrick Gamedze did not answer their phones when sought.

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