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E400 000 FOR ESIBAYENI LODGE U-17 LEAGUE!

02/03/2019 16:30:00 BY CHRIS DLAMINI

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MATSAPHA – It is raining money in this year’s Esibayeni Lodge Under-17 League – a E200 000 sponsorship was launched yesterday.

The launch took place in Matsapha, in one of the Esibayeni Lodge’s conference rooms with Minister Harries ‘Madze’ Bulunga along with the PLE and EFA and clubs’ representatives.

The lodge retained its E200 000 package which has increased only once in their four editions as sponsors of the five-year-old PLE Development League. The other E200 000 comes from the EFA which is to assist the league as per FIFA requirements to invest in under-17 football worldwide.
This amounts to E400 000 for the league this season.

“My father couldn’t be here but without a doubt, he is proud to once again associate with the development league which already has fruits in the elite league. He said that it was important to have the development league running to groom future stars.

“In his own words, the main goal of the sponsorship is to ensure that the junior league breeds good players for the senior teams and national squads while one day it would be nice to see them play in professional leagues around the world,” said the lodge’s representative and its Managing Director, Desmond Oswin’s daughter Yolanda.

She appealed to other companies to come out and take a leaf from what they were doing, support development, even if it is not football as there were other sporting codes. PLE Chairman and EFA Vice President Peter ‘Touch’ Magagula, who represented both organisations despite EFA CEO Frederick Mngomezulu’s presence, expressed their utmost gratitude for the gesture.

“We had thought Esibayeni Lodge was lost as Oswin had made it clear he was not continuing with the sponsorship after three years with us. We started at E150 000 with him then went on to E200 000. I was so hurt to see them leave but because they have always been friends to football. Here we are today for the launch of yet another E200 000 sponsorship,” he said, much to a huge round of applause.

He said this was happening despite the country’s bad economic status these days and as PLE, they were promising to once again look after the sponsorship with tender care and run the league professionally.

serious

“We’ve already started making changes to show how serious we take this development league and that of the under-20s. The EFA is also with us and because we’re working together to promote this course, we’ll now be ensuring that the teams have equipment and qualified coaches for starters,” he said while also praising the under-17 national team performance in Botswana last year where they got bronze as well as the elite players from this development.
Magagula confirmed the other E200 000 from the EFA where he is also the Vice President by virtue of being PLE Chairman. This was after he was asked how they would equip the sides and further have qualified coaches for each of the 14 clubs.

Minister Bulunga welcomed the sponsorship, saying it was soothing to see that already, there were products who made it into the elite league like Young Buffaloes’ Lindani ‘Rio’ Matsenjwa and Vovovo’s Leon Manyisa among others.

“It is clear that the future of our football is bright because Esibayeni Lodge is playing this magnificent role. We have said time and again and other countries have shown us too that in order to have strong top flight clubs and national teams, we need proper investment in development.

“This is exactly what Esibayeni Lodge is doing because these U-17 stars are the Siza Dlamini’s and Tony Tsabedze’s of the future. To Oswin, I register my sincere gratitude, on behalf of government, for taking this road less travelled and pumping in so much money to juniors’ league,” he said.

He said everyone knew that the country was facing serious economic challenges and government has been consistently calling upon the corporate sector to assist in programmes that will help improve the situation, which is what the lodge had done.