PROPOSALS STALLED IN EFA AGM

MBABANE – Constitutional changes are hugely possible. This is with regard to the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) statutes, particularly the Constitution of the local football mother body which is currently with FIFA for a review. Consequent to the review by the world governing body, the EFA had to stall proposals in last Sunday’s Annual General Meeting (AGM). FIFA is an acronym for Federation of International Football Association.

As it turns out, the proposals submitted by some of the eight affiliates will now be discussed in an Extraordinary Meeting to be announced once the EFA Constitution review was completed and returned to the kingdom.

avoid any confusion

The wait is to avoid any confusion or contradiction of the constitution and the proposals as they stand to be approved or discarded in an extraordinary meeting.
“The EFA president explained to us why we wouldn’t get into the proposals on the day. He made it clear the organisation’s statutes were with FIFA and we couldn’t proceed until they were returned,” said a source from one of the eight affiliates.

Upon following the matter, some affiliates openly confirmed that the EFA President, Adam ‘Bomber’ Mthethwa explained the position in terms of proposals. Among those that had submitted their proposals is the Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) and the Eswatini Football Referees Association (EFRA).
The latter’s Chairman, Sipho Kunene, affirmed that they were among those that submitted proposals.

afforded privilege

“We had again submitted the usual proposal to be afforded privilege of involvement in the EFA Executive Committee decisions. We are currently not represented and this impacts badly on us especially because we lag behind in decisions.

“This is our proposal but the EFA President put it to us in the AGM that we couldn’t talk proposals when their statutes were still with FIFA. This means, as he said, there will be an Extraordinary Meeting once FIFA was done with the statutes,” he said.
Pursued on the non-involvement in executive decisions, Kunene said he could not say much at this stage because their proposal was with the EFA and yet to be considered in another meeting.

However, he said one of the current examples of how the absence of representation affected them was when football was suspended by the EFA, a big decision they only learnt about in the local media.

disbursed

Meanwhile, he confirmed that the referees’ body disbursed close to E120 000 equally to is 77 members, each getting E1 480 in cash plus a mask and a 30ml sanitiser. The money had come from EFA to all its affiliates and referees were among those receiving E125 000 out of E2.2 million. The PLE received the lion’s share of E700 000.

PLE Chairman Peter ‘Touch’ Magagula had diplomatically confirmed last week that they also had proposals with one of them calling for relegation play-offs in the First Division instead of a direct relegation to the Super League. His organisation’s Chief Operations Officer Pat Vilakati also affirmed the EFA president explained the proposals matter.

“As the EFA, the main statute is the constitution and that’s exactly what FIFA currently has for review. It is happens and normal that FIFA requests for the associations’ statutes to review them and make changes where necessary,” explained EFA Marketing and Communications Officer Muzi Radebe.
He said as Mthethwa put it to affiliates last Sunday, they could not go ahead with proposals before what changes FIFA would have made into the constitution.

resumption

He said while the EFA Executive Committee would meet in August to discuss the COVID-19 situation with regard to the resumption of football, procedure will be followed to announce the extraordinary meet.
He, however, would not reveal the proposals on the table when pressed to do so.
Some of the affected proposals:

l Relegation playoffs for the four First Divisions due to go to Super League to retain level of competition and experience in the league that feeds the top flight. (PLE proposal)
l A 16-team elite league was another of the proposals. (PLE proposal)
l Referees’ representation in the EFA Executive Committee. (Eswatini Football Referees Association proposal)

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