EFA, PLE SUBSIDY BUDGET DILEMMA

MBABANE – COVID-19 is presenting one financial challenge after another for football.

The country’s football governing bodies have yet another challenge to address in as far as compensating teams is concerned when top flight football kicks-off on November 20.

Last week during a media briefing session on COVID-19 regulations for the football resumption strategy at the Happy Valley Resort, EFA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Frederick Mngomezulu said they will come up with a subsidy budget to mitigate the situation for teams as they will play without fans this year.

This, Mngomezulu said, was due to the fact that most teams were sustained through gate takings.

It has since transpired that the EFA and the Premier League of Eswatini are faced with a predicament on coming up with the subsidy budget.

According to informed sources within the PLE executive, PLE needs to furnish the mother body with documents on how much they made monthly when fans were permitted into stadiums.

“The issue has not yet been discussed pending documents on how much the PLE made and how much teams received as gate takings,” confided a source.

The sources further revealed that the main challenge was that most teams did not have audited financial statements which could have made it easier to compensate them as their expenditure would clearly be reflected from these documents.

expenses

“All the teams’ expenses are needed, how much they spent on security, travel and officials for instance,” said a source.

The sources claimed things would have been simpler if teams adhered to CAF Club Licensing requirements.

Further, sources revealed that the subsidy budget does not necessarily mean it should be readily available on November 20 because teams, as per norm, would get the money on a monthly basis.

Drawn for comment, PLE Chief Operations Officer (COO) Pat Vilakati said issues of the EFA were dealt with on another level, being the EFA itself.

Asked to clarify the issue of financially assisting teams without audited financial documents, Vilakati said it was also a matter dealt with at the EFA as that was where CAF Club Licensing issues were handled and the PLE only received a report of compliant and non-compliant members.

EFA Marketing and Communications Officer Muzi Radebe was also reached for comment and said the issue of loss of income would be addressed this month when games had already started.

“Teams make money from ticket sales and the issue will be addressed when games are already playing,” said Radebe.

He added that other COVID-19 basic prevention elements such as sanitisers were already provided by the EFA to teams and they conducted trainings for teams’ personnel to try and deal with the situation.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: