PLE OFFER E300 000 FOR COVID-19 TESTING

MBABANE – The Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) has reportedly pledged E300 000 as contribution to the COVID-19 testing of all the 30 premier league clubs expected to commence tomorrow.

Independent investigations by this newspaper revealed that this pledge has already been communicated to the Eswatini Football Association (EFA). 

This pledge, however, is still short of the money needed as the budget for the testing of all the premier league clubs is reportedly at over E800 000, which means over E500 000 is still needed to cover all the costs.

Furthermore, it has been established that both the EFA and PLE have agreed to jointly take financial responsibility on the testing of the players. This means the country’s football mother body will also be contributing financially to the testing of the players and indications are that they will settle the balance of the costs needed with the assistance of Eswatini Government through the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs.    

required to test

The initial plan was that the teams would be required to test after every three months, but the revised one is now compelling them (clubs) to test monthly. 

“You will recall that the first testing of premier league clubs was handled by the EFA and the arrangement was that they would test after every three months. This is one of the reasons the EFA has been clarifying that the responsibility to check players daily is not theirs, but for clubs. The proposal now is that the EFA utilise the budgeted funds for the testing which was to be done after three months because clearly, clubs have no funds to do it on their own at the moment. Testing cannot wait for three months because games must continue,” our trusted sources confided. 

testing process

It has been further gathered that the testing process will start tomorrow throughout the week and this has been made easier by the fact that all football activities including MTN Premier League matches have been put on hold by the country’s authorities in light of the COVID-19 surge. 

PLE’ Chief Operations Officer (COO) Pat Vilakati claimed that he was not aware of these developments when quizzed by this publication. However, impeccable sources in the organisation asserted that only E300 000 has been made available for the testing of the clubs, which are 16 in the elite league and 14 in the first division league. 

The EFA executive committee was expected to meet last Thursday to deliberate on the issue, but this meeting apparently turned out to be a non-starter due to the ban of gatherings by government as announced by acting Prime Minister Themba Masuku some few days ago in a press conference.  

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