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3-WEEK GRACE PERIOD

24/04/2020 00:13:00 BY LWAZI DLAMINI

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Sports Editor

MBABANE – Premier League teams’ wish to have a grace period to prepare after the football season suspension has been lifted.

The Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) Executive Committee, after a meeting held on Wednesday afternoon at Sigwaca House, has decided that teams will be given three weeks, at most, to prepare when the 2019/2020 season resumes.

The football season was suspended on March 13 until May 20 due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed over 170 000 lives world-wide.
The decision to suspend the season until May 20 was taken after a PLE Board of Governors meeting held on March 17 at Lobamba.

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Some of the teams, after the meeting, implored the PLE to consider giving them a bit of time to prepare for the resumption of the season.
PLE Chief Operations Officer (COO) Pat Vilakati confirmed that they had decided that teams would be given between two or three weeks to prepare before the season resumed.

“We are quite aware that teams are grounded right now, can’t even train so once we are given the go-ahead to stage games we would then give the teams either two or three weeks to prepare before we resume the season,” Vilakati said.
He stressed that the resumption of the football season will be guided by government guidelines in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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“Obviously we will be guided by government and the Football Association when we can resume the season, but we did meet our sponsors to alert them of the COVID-19 challenges and before we resume the season, we will also meet them again.

“But for the teams we feel three weeks will be enough for them to prepare for the start of the games. We will continue to keep them updated on any developments regarding the season,” he added.

Vilakati stressed that the season had to be finished because any other option would throw many things into disarray.
“We have to finish the season because there is a lot at stake for all the teams and we just have to hope the COVID-19 will be defeated and get back to our normal lives. For now, people should adhere to the government precautionary measures in order to flatten the curve,” he added.