MORE CASH FOR PLE TEAMS!

MBABANE – More financial assistance is on its way for local football teams, but with very strict conditions.
This newspaper has gathered that the Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) submitted a budget amounting to over E15 million to the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) which will then forward it to FIFA as part of the COVID-19 Relief Fund assistance request.

The FIFA Relief Fund, however, will come with strict conditions, in particular adherence to the CAF Club Licensing which requires teams to have offices, proper training grounds, staff payroll and audited financial statements.

“The PLE was asked by the EFA in early May to submit financial statements for the past three seasons which were then compiled and submitted to FIFA. FIFA will then decide on what sort of financial assistance they can render but the PLE submitted a budget of over E15 million. This, however, doesn’t mean they will get that amount. It’s entirely up to FIFA,” a highly-placed source at the PLE said.

delivered

This comes days after the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) delivered the ‘good news’ that their eight-member associations would share E2.2 million from the COVID-19 Relief Fund created to mitigate the effects of the virus. more of such assistance could be on the offering for local football very soon.
This is because the Federation of international Football Association (FIFA) will soon be announcing a COVID-19 Relief Fund for all member associations including the EFA after using the past weeks to collect essential data with the aim of coming up with a sufficient budget.
It is expected that it won’t be long before these funds are made available for the members as soon as they are deposited into the local associations coffers. Worth noting is that the EFA members were allocated in differing scales with the Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) getting the lion’s share of E700 000 from the E2.2 million.

discontentment

There have, however, been discreet grumbles and feelings of discontentment from PLE members on their allocation by their executive committee headed by Peter ‘Touch’ Magagula. It has been confirmed that the 14 premier league teams would share E378 000 (E27 000 each) while the 12 in the first division league would take home E15 000 each. This adds up to E180 000 for this division and most of the clubs interviewed, though speaking on condition of anonymity in fear of victimisation, are clearly not happy with the allocation. A member of the Board of Governors (BoGs) descried the fact that the money allocated was not enough to cater for a week’s essential expenses in the teams.
“This is an absolute disappointment and it is very difficult to even say thank you for such peanuts.
Continues on page 55

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