E27 000 EACH FOR PLE TEAMS

MBABANE – The final decision has been reached. As correctly reported by our sister publication, Eswatini News over the weekend, the 26 elite league teams will not get on equal share of the COVID-19 Relief Fund rolled out by the Peter ‘Touch’ Magagula-led Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) Executive Committee.

Reliable information gathered by this publication has revealed that the executive committee met last Thursday where a resolution was reached on how the members would be rationed from the E700 000 grant announced by Eswatini Football Association (EFA) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Frederick Mngometulu recently.

Funding

All the EFA eight member associations were given about E2.2 million by the country’s football mother body to share. Mngometulu made it clear when announcing this funding that it was meant to help members mitigate the effects of COVID-19 given that all football activities are on indefinite suspension, not just locally but globally as well.

It has since emerged that after hours of intense discussions, a decision was reached that the 14 premier league teams will get E27 000 each while the 12 first division  teams will each receive E15 000. This means that the teams in the big league will share E378 000 while those in the first division have E180 000 distributed among them. This brings the total amount of money allocated by the PLE executive committee to E558 000, with the balance of E142 000 channelled towards administration costs.

According to reports sourced yesterday, the 26 members were formally given notification through memorandum about how the distribution has been decided. Though flatly refusing to discuss the figures involved, PLE Chief Operations Officer (COO) Pat Vilakati alluded to the fact that the executive committee had reached a decision on the allocation of the E700 000 to members.

“It was agreed with the members that such financial information (how much the members were given) was strictly confidential and cannot be shared with the media or public. We respect their wishes and will not go against that. All I can confirm is that the executive committee met to discuss this issue and came to a resolution. This has been formally communicated to the members as required. The monies will be deposited into their accounts as per the usual arrangement,” Vilakati explained.

Some of the teams contacted were clearly not impressed with the allocated funds and complained bitterly that this would not even solve half their problems at the moment. It must be noted that most of the members interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity in fear of victimisation from the PLE bigwigs. This follows that a notice was recently issued by the organisation warning members against making unauthorised media statements, especially those viewed as bringing the name of the organisation into disrepute.

“E21 000 is salary for two of my players per month and most teams have 25 registered players that must be paid every month.
“This is not a relief at all because the challenges we are facing as clubs are far too bigger than what we have been given. This is not to say we do not appreciate the gesture from the executive committee but it is peanuts to be honest,” said a member of the PLE Board of Governors (BoGs).

Accountable

Meanwhile, Vilakati further pointed out that the members had been warned to be accountable when spending the money.
“The issue of accountability is very important and we have made that clear to the members. We expect that all transactions involving the spending of this money will be accounted for with receipts. There are no negotiations when it comes to that requirement because we have a duty as an organisation to account for such monies with the EFA,” he said.

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