‘COVID-19 HAS REFORMED FOOTBALL’

MBABANE – Meetings and other forms of gatherings have gone virtual - a new normal in the practice of the sport.

This status quo is something the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) has embraced and encourages all football divisions to do same. In the EFA Activity Report for the currently suspended football season 2019/20, the changes brought about by COVID-19 are marked as one of the highlights. The EFA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Frederick Mngometulu makes it clear that the novelty of the Video Conferencing and Virtual Convention Platforms was taking football away from its customary medians.

Experience

“Owing to the intervention of the COVID-19 health threat, global football has reformed in such a way that it continues to experience some transitions, particularly on the technological and scientific fronts. “This can be viewed as breaking the traditional norms of the game into embracing innovations that seek to keep pace with the advent of technology,” reads the report in part. Gatherings like meetings, workshops, conventions and courses ‘are now hosted virtually, a new normal in the practice of the sport’. Mngometulu explains in the report that certainly, these continental and universal comprehensive technologies not only are an immediate solution to the challenges that ‘we currently face, but are a new and future behaviour’ that has to be embraced.

“This, therefore, will impact the business of football practice domestically where now evolutionary training and education become essential to assimilate the innovations in technology, while trying to ensure that we remain relevant to the game of contemporary times,” he explained in the report tabled before affiliates over a week ago in the association’s Annual General Assembly (AGM). The virtual meetings or gatherings are a result of the COVID-19 regulations restricting gatherings to limited numbers. The Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) has already had to seek permission for the special meeting involving the Board of Governors and the Executive Committee recently as the restriction was 20 people per gathering. Some courses and video conferencing have also taken place under the EFA and its affiliates.

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