‘BIRDS’ E1.6M BLOW!

MBABANE – Watching Mbabane Swallows live on Supersport during its CAF Champions League campaign came at a huge expense to the club.

‘The Birds’ spend over E500 000 per game to hire SuperSport broadcasters to come to the country and broadcast each match live.
By the end of the group stages, the team would have spent over E1.6 million.
Swallows group D match against Tunisia’s Etoile Du Sahel will be broadcast live on SuperSport next Tuesday. The game is billed for Mavuso Sports Centre, kick-off is at 3pm.

Swallows General Manager Sandile ‘Beyond 2 000’ Zwane confirmed yesterday that the money was deducted from the participation fee which is around E6.6 million for every game to be broadcast live.

“Even last year when we were playing in the CAF Confederation up, we ended up losing over E1.6 million to pay the broadcasters to come to the country. This is really a drain to the team and it comes as a cost while it does market us well,” he said.

Zwane said CAF demands that the hosting teams secure broadcasters who will broadcast the games according to their set high standards.
“Here at home, we do not meet the standards required to have the game live, so we are forced to hire South African broadcasters like SuperSport. Some things are beyond our control and it is unfortunate that we have to go through all these expenses,” he said.

Zwane said the participation fee they got from CAF once they reached the group stages was exhausted even before the games from the group stages come to an end. He said there were lot of expenses that they have to pay and they include travelling three times to play opponents away.

Swallows have already travelled to Zambia where they played a 1-all draw against Zesco United and on July 27 they will travel to Tunisia to play they fourth group match.
Swallows will also travel to Angola to face Club 1 Desportivo in mid-August before their last game against Zesco United end of August here at home.

The only broadcasters in the country are Eswatini TV and Channel S who do not have the equipment to meet the CAF required set standards. One of the requirements is at least eight cameras used for a live match.

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