EFA HALTS MTN LEAGUE 1ST ROUND RACE

MBABANE – This weekend’s MTN Premier League games in the country will be the last ahead of the FIFA international break.

FIFA denotes Federation of International Football Associations. The next one starts on November 11 until November 19. With Eswatini’s senior national soccer team Sihlangu Semnikati engaged in the much-awaited African Nations Cup (AFCON) 2021 Qualifiers away to Guinea-Bissau on November 13th in the first group match and on return take on Senegal at home on November 17th, the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) has requested teams, through the Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) to release players selected to the national team as of next Monday for the squad’s full-time camp.

The EFA sent a correspondence to the PLE on Wednesday which was later shared with the media yesterday by the latter as confirmation the exciting league first round race will continue only this weekend and then give way to Sihlangu’s full-time camp which starts on Monday.

release

“Kindly note that their release is sought from 4thNovember 2019 until 17th November 2019 after the conclusion of the matches. All players are expected to have arrived at the EFA Technical Centre, Lobamba at 8am at the latest,” reads the correspondence by the EFA CEO Frederick Mngomezulu.
In line with the EFA correspondence, the PLE also sent its own correspondence to its affiliate teams to release the players selected for national duty for as per the EFA’s request. The PLE also attached to its own the EFA correspondence.

The games, given their magnitude as these are countries from this year’s AFCON Cup in Egypt where Senegal finished as runners-up while Guinea-Bissau failed in the group stages. Senegal is also from the World Cup 2018 in Russia.

Also going along with the EFA correspondence was the list of the squad’s players expected to be in camp. It excludes all the country’s internationals including Captain Felix Badenhorst, Njabulo ‘D4D’ Ndlovu, Sabelo ‘Sikhali’ Ndzinisa (Mbombela United in South Africa) and winger Justice Figuareido of South Africa’s elite Maritzburg United. If anything, their clubs will release them a few days before the FIFA week starts on November 11.

However, most of these internationals have not been active in their respective clubs for various reasons including not getting selected and injuries. The only internationals that have seen some action are Figuareido and Ndzinisa while Polokwane City’s Banele ‘Pupu’ Sikhondze last got called up in the away clash to Djibouti in the World Cup 2022 Qualifiers but did not even travel.

PLE COO Pat Vilakati confirmed the break and said it was due to the upcoming FIFA break and the EFA requesting to have the squad in full-time earlier than late. The organisation’s Chairman Peter ‘Touch’ Magagula said this weekend’s games were the last until after the Senegal match on November 17th at Mavuso Sports Centre.

“Sihlangu will be travelling next weekend so we won’t have games and when they return there is the match against Senegal on the 17th which is just very close from when they return. So for two weeks our games will not be playing,” he confirmed as well.

EFA Marketing and Communications Officer Muzi Radebe said internationals were expected to join soon as their clubs were done with domestic fixtures before the official FIFA dates. Meanwhile, above is list of the domestic players called-up and it includes Pigg’s Peak Black Swallows striker Allen Mabuza and no Mbabane Swallows’ Sandile Hlatshwako who failed to honour a call-up ahead of the African Nations Championships (CHAN).

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