5 ELEMENTS EFA’S RESTART PLAN DOESN’T ADDRESS

Sports Editor

As the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) wipes away the shells of the ostrich egg that was splashed all over its face this week, following the rebuke from government for making pronouncements on football’s return, the four-phase plan they represented is equally riddled with more holes than Swiss Cheese.
The four-phase plan is a draft document which is lacking in substance and completely at odds with the actual situation on the ground in our wacky world of football.

For good measure, it might have been compiled by someone not only riding on a high horse, but in an air-conditioned office swinging on a swivel chair at St George’s Park offices, Newborough Road, Needwood in London.
It does not address the teething challenges of our football in line with the government precautionary measures and the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a majority of leagues around the world, either cancelled the 2019/2020 season or looked at the safest ways to restart the season, ours seems to be more of an ‘order’ from the power-drunk EFA Executive Committee – which didn’t consult with the team owners for that matter – with even the propensity to put down dates on when action should resume. Such superciliousness!

That’s why government through the Eswatini Sport and Recreation Council (ESRC) had to quickly remind the EFA as to who is in charge of the national disaster and who has the final say.

But long before government’s quick intervention, Sports Editor LWAZI DLAMINI, in his series of articles, highlights the five key elements that are not addressed by the four-phase plan to restart the season.

ISOLATION AND QUARANTINE

While the EFA plan does insist that players will be screened and tested every week, it does not state where then will the players be kept after the screening and testing, because clubs must have quarantine houses or a place where they can keep the players so that they do not get to mix with other members of society. In South Africa, they contemplate having a camp where all the teams will be put in strict quarantine until they finish the remaining games, which would be played in empty stadiums. The players must be quarantined for 14 days after testing, especially the foreign players who are currently out of the country. In the event, a player tests positive, what will happen? Must the whole team be quarantined? There is no clear plan on how to get the whole project started, especially how the EFA is going to capacitate the teams in this regard instead this is left to the vices of the cash-strapped teams. It’s a recipe for disaster.

CAPACITY BUILDING
EXERCISE ON COVID-19

Before the EFA laid out a restart plan, they ought to have started off by engaging the teams in a capacity building exercise that will be as practical as humanly possible. The nature of our teams is that they have players who also work elsewhere and play football part time. Some of the players are self-employed, others work for government, Corporates. How is the plan going to work to ensure they are not a high risk for the rest of the players? Most importantly, the teams need to know the lists of things not to be shared e.g. water bottles, masks, sheen guards, bibs, soccer boots, training equipment. The teams need to have full-time medical practitioners to oversee the whole project so that there is monitoring and compliance. How will the social distancing issue be addressed, from the training session, as teams use the same mode of transport to and from training and to and from soccer matches? All these questions have to be answered otherwise restarting without tackling all these would be akin to sailing a ship while building it!

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

The EFA does not mention any issues of financial assistance to the teams, yet ALL the things that would ensure restarting the season require cold, hard cash. Ordinarily, the EFA will obviously procure some of the personal protective equipment (PPE) and sanitising of the training grounds and stadiums, but what about issues of using different modes of transport to ensure social distancing, training equipment and rooms to keep players who could test positive.
A plan without financial backing is just a wish.

MEDICAL POLICY

There is a clear case of our players having no medical policy with their respective teams let alone funeral policy. You have officials as well who don’t have both. What plan has the EFA put in place to ensure these issues are addressed? The four-phase EFA plan does not cover this aspect yet they have already set dates on when football should return in the face of the greatest tragedy to human life in our times – the COVID-19 pandemic.

OFFICERS TO ENSURE
MONITORING AND COMPLIANCE 

Unless the EFA lives in Utopia, you cannot expect to carry out the whole four-phase plan without human resource – qualified personnel for that matter. They are quite aware teams do not have qualified personnel in most of the areas nor do our teams have the capacity to have them. But the plan doesn’t cover this crucial area. Who is going to ensure there is monitoring and compliance in each and every team? With the prevalent archaic muti beliefs in our teams, players sharing baths, who will ensure this doesn’t happen? The EFA in its infinite wisdom to restart the season without looking at all these issues is seriously, at best, cheering on a band playing on the deck of a sinking titanic or at worst, playing Russian roulette with the players lives!

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