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2019/2020 FOOTBALL SUSPENSION TO GO BEYOND MAY 20 - PLE

06/05/2020 01:31:00 BY SABELO NDZINISA

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MBABANE – The resumption of this year’s football season has been thrown into further doubt. This follows confirmation by the Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) chairman Peter ‘Touch’ Magagula yesterday that the Board of Governors’ meeting projected for May 20 where the resumption of the games was top of the agenda, has been postponed indefinitely.

This means that the restart of the pending local games, including the MTN Premier League and EswatiniBank Cup, remains suspended as the world continues to monitor the situation surrounding the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.

PLE Board of Governors agreed in their last meeting held at the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) Technical Centre in Lobamba about two months ago that another gathering would be convened on May 20 to assess the situation surrounding the COVID-19 with the aim of restarting the games.

Unlikely

However, it is increasingly looking unlikely that the games will be resuming anytime soon and the PLE chairman asserted that the May 20 meeting is now falling off for the simple reason that the situation surrounding the COVID-19 crisis is not improving but getting worse by each passing day as reflected by the growing number of positive cases in the country.

“It was agreed in our previous meeting with the governors at Lobamba that May 20 was reserved to assess the situation around the coronavirus to guide us if games could be restarted. Unfortunately, the number of positive cases in the country is rising everyday and practically speaking, we cannot even gather for the meeting on May 20, let alone think about restarting the games at the moment,” Magagula said.

The chairman added that PLE members would be informed of any developments regarding a new date for this eargely awaited meeting where it was also expected that the members would push for the adoption of the amended constitution.

The PLE has already indicated that teams would be given at least three weeks (21 days) to prepare for the resumption of the games as soon as the coronavirus global crisis is declared over. Analysts have predicted that if the games do not resume by August the latest, there is a strong possibility that this season could be declared null and void.