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LAFA ELIHLE KAKHULU!

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Sports Editor

Barely three months after I publicly decried that our three top teams in this country, Mbabane Swallows, Manzini Wanderers and Mbabane Highlanders are not self-sustainable and it is not good for the game, the chickens have come home to roost.


My apprehension was that, these old teams, with proud and rich histories, cannot rely on the generosity of individuals who may use these entities for their own narrow, selfish interests.


I argued then, that our football clubs are no longer seen as temples of belonging and making money from them is what the directors now want. Few have succeeded and many others have failed.


Here we go again. The worst thing to ever happen to our football in living memory, which inevitable has cast aspersions on whether we can even call ours a ‘premier’ league in the first place, when such happens in broad day-light, took place this week.


secured


The appalling event that visited our football on Tuesday when Mbabane Highlanders director Ally Kgomongwe, in a first-of-its-kind joint press conference, publicly stated that he had secured Wanderers a director and will be paying their salaries in the meantime should not shock anyone who understands the state our football is in.


It was long time coming. In fact it has been festering itself for sometime and it was a matter of time before it came to the fore. Let’s put it into perspective. Manzini Wanderers financial challenges are well documented. After another South African based Eswatini businessman Mehluli Nhlengetfwa stepped down unceremoniously late last year, the hub giants has been limping from one financial challenge to another – unpaid players salaries, an ever-increasing debt with the Premier League of Eswatini and powder-puff performances on the pitch.


tragedy


It was alarming. Lying on the eleventh spot on the 14-team MTN log standings with eight games remaining, with a pitiable 17 points in 18 games, four wins, five draws and nine losses, minus 13 goal difference, Wanderers is a modern day football tragedy. Two points above the relegation quagmire, nobody knows what would have happened to one of the most fervently supported teams in the country had the COVID-19 pandemic not brought the season to a halt. Now, faced with a financial crisis, the Council of Elders, like a foster child looking for a place to sleep, apparently asked for Mbabane Highlanders director Ally Kgomongwe’s intervention.


On face value, there is nothing wrong with seeking assistance elsewhere after-all as Ally said during the press conference, we are all Africans. But our football is guided by a constitution which bars someone like Ally from acting as an agent for a team like Wanderers. Kgomongwe should have known that Article 21:10 of the PLE stipulates that:


“No director, official or player of a club may either directly or indirectly:
l     10. 1 hold or deal in the shares of another club.
l     10.2 be a member of another club.
l     10.3 be involved in any capacity in the management or administration or coaching of another club.
l     10.4 act as an agent.
l     10.5 No two teams from the same club may participate in the premier and First Division or in any individual competition in the league in the same season.


Kgomongwe’s actions are in direct conflict of both 10.3 and 10.4 of the PLE Constitution Article 21. What does it say about our football? How does the Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) and Eswatini Football Association (EFA) view such pronouncements, in terms of integrity and brand image?
This is unheard of.


I do not even want to discuss the issue of the two teams, competing in one league, having a so-called joint training in Pretoria. Does this even make sense? Where else in God’s green earth has something like that ever happened?


demeaning


To be fair and honest, I don’t blame Ally Kgomongwe for taking this path even if I find it demeaning to everything our football stands for let alone to the brand image of Wanderers as a team, one of the oldest and fervently supported in this country.


Wanderers challenges, we all know, are exacerbated by the big elephant in the room they don’t want to confront – the ownership of the club. I have said it before and I will say it again, unless the ownership of the club issue is resolved and the chains of command are clear, that club will continue to be ‘owned’ by anyone who can rub two pieces of penny together if those registered as company directors deem fit.


They will continue to ‘rent’ it out to the highest bidder (Executive Chairman as they like to coin it) because clearly they can’t afford to run it themselves.
Kgomongwe’s actions may have, on face value, been benevolent and genuine. He had been asked to help and he has delivered in that regard – a possible male or female director. But they are in direct conflict of our football’s constitution. In any case, how gracious of him too, that he will be paying Wanderers salaries in the meantime the finalisation of the new director deal is done. But the million rand question is, what’s in it for him?


Maybe that is even beside the point. What grates my pancreas in this whole deal is, where is the football business ethical point here? What happens to the football brand image when such a thing happens?


blame


Maybe we should not blame Kgomongwe. We should blame ourselves – all of us. This is the culmination of the lack of standards within our so-called premier league where anyone can wake up and own a team. There is no vetting, nothing. This is the price we are paying as a country for failing to set standards for our football.


It is only in Eswatini where a so-called director can have a team in the premier league when he has no dime in his bank account and then he has to constantly request financial bail-out from the PLE week in and week out until the end of the season. Other leagues have set standards where not only the director but the team has to have a minimum fee to be able to be regarded as a premier league club. In England, for instance, a team enters what is called ‘administration’ if it cannot pay its debts and it can be relegated to a lower league.


reflection


Unless and until we have set standards for our league such alliances like we have seen this week will be a common thing.
This is a reflection of the lack of leadership in the premier league.


If we had proper leadership such a thing would not be allowed to happen because it not only degrades the business status of the league but its rights and image.
Joint corporate agreements between two teams as we have seen with South Africa’s Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs are encouraged but never can the all-too-powerful Orlando Pirates Football Club boss, Dr Irvin ‘Iron Duke’Khoza call a press conference to announce that he will be paying Kaizer Chiefs players salaries for whatever reasons. Let’s not confuse the two.
If the PLE and the EFA know what they stand for, unless we are blinded by the forthcoming elections, let them investigate this Highlanders and Wanderers alliance.
I smell a big fat rat.
It stinks from as far as Marabastad. Awu… lafa elihle kakhulu!  

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