Home | Sports | CHICKENS HAVE COME HOME TO ROOST

CHICKENS HAVE COME HOME TO ROOST

07/12/2020 22:01:00 BY Lwazi's Pandora's Box

Font size:

My dearest readers... “The EFA sent us correspondence to the effect that only 88 per cent of our members were in full compliance with the expected CAF standards but we don’t know which of our 16 members make the 88 per cent and which make the 12 per cent,” is a missive by Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) Chief Operations Officer (COO) Pat Vilakati in our exclusive story in the Times Sunday.

It speaks to the ultimate no-nonsense approach adopted by the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) in ensuring adherence to the CAF Club Licensing Programme after years of dilly-dallying, creative avoidance and lame excuses.

My green flies on the Sigwaca House wall tell me some premier league teams are now running helter-skelter, pinning ‘offices’ placards even on depilated houses just to be seen conforming to the CAF Club Licensing requirements. Some teams have placards on two different areas leaving us wondering where really the club offices are.

It’s the silly season, so to speak, courtesy of CAF’s insistence that no compliance this time, no registration.

For years the continental mother body has preached the gospel of turning the game professional by having proper football clubs in the truest sense of the word, but all this fell on deaf ears.

Many teams continued to be run from the boot of cars, players contracts not worth the paper written on and no proper administrative structures in the teams with checks and balances.

Failed

This is one of the many reasons, African football has failed to make a mark on the international stage. No African team has ever won FIFA’s crown jewel, the World Cup let alone reached its finals.

This became a huge concern to the silk-suited souls at CAF hence the introduction of the CAF Club Licensing programme to ensure teams at least have the bare minimum standards.

This move has been continuously procrastinated or worse, rebuked by our football leadership especially at the Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) level and now it has caught up with us. The chickens have come home to roost. Now it is time to adapt or die.

It’s a good move by CAF. The same approach has long been extended to the technicians of the game – coaches – where there are set standards.

This State-of-the-Nation-Sports-Address (SONSA) has long decried the fact that the lack of set standards in our so-called premier league makes a mockery of the game in the country.

The fact that any Tom, Dick and Uncle Harry – with no dime to rub together – can wake up and own a premier league team is laughable if it were not serious.

Financially-struggling

This has resulted in the PLE having to play ‘mother-hen’, dishing out loans which end up not being paid by the financially-struggling teams who should not really be playing in our elite league.

In the more advanced leagues like the English premier league, a team’s bank balance is also another pillar which is taken into consideration on whether a team deserves to be in the elite league.

A team that is not financially sound is put into what is called ‘Administration’ and can even be relegated to a lower league.

Our league should have set standards to avoid the situation where the integrity of the league is put in jeopardy.

The CAF Club Licensing Programme is one of the tenets that is trying to address these issues in its totality.

But for years, both the EFA and PLE have allowed teams to get away with murder. Undeserving teams cheated the system dare I say with the EFA in particular not lifting the finger. Unfortunately this time, such can no longer happen.

If the EFA wants to assist the teams to meet the required standards they should not lower the standards or bend the rules. Rules are there for a reason.

If a team does not meet the requirements, therefore it cannot play in the Premier League.

It’s now or never in this CAF Club Licensing requirements. Circumventing the rules is not helping the teams or our football.

Implemented

We will continue to lag behind even in our Southern African region where some countries have long implemented the CAF Club Licensing in its totality.

To say, even right now, I am shocked that 88 per cent of the teams actually meet the CAF Club Licensing, would be an insult to the word itself. If indeed it’s true then it is a good thing. At least we are moving forward in this regard.

Both the EFA and PLE should stick to the rules. It is the right thing to do if we are to move to the next level of turning our football into a professional entity.