E8M BOUNTY

MBABANE – The country’s CAF Champions League envoy, Royal Leopard are 90 minutes away from pocketing a handsome E8 million bounty.

This will be possible if the police ensemble beat Angola’s Sagrada Esperança in the second preliminary round of the CAF interclub main competition. If they win, they will play in the group stages which come with a package of E8 million for the team that finish as fourth in the group. According to the tournament rules and regulations, the 16 winners of the second round will play in the group stage, while the 16 losers will enter the CAF Confederation Cup play-off round. Leopard PRO Frank Hurube said without the support from the nation they would not have reached this stage.  

“The journey continues and all thanks to emaSwati, EFA, management, technical bench and the players. It is true that the higher you go the colder it becomes, this means we will need more financial support from emaSwati as this next game will require us to dig deep from the pocket,” Hurube said. The award-winning PRO said for them to stand a chance of pocketing the E8 million they need to invest more. “We were given a mandate to do well in Africa and we are doing just that. It is not going to be easy but we will soldier on,” he said. He also confirmed that Leopard arrived home last night after their game against Zambia’s Zesco United. The Edwin Matsebula-led charges will play Esperança next month. This is after they eliminated United on an aggregate score of 2-2, Leopard advance due to the away goal rule in the first round in the preliminary stage. The tie ended 2-1 in favour of the Zambians while the reverse fixture played on September 11 saw the MTN League Champions winning 1-0.

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The first leg will be played on the weekend of October 15-17 away while the second leg will see Leopard host the Angolans on the weekend of October 22-24 at Mavuso Sports Centre, Manzini. Meanwhile, Sagrada booted out Zimbabwe’s FC Platinum with a 5-4 score line following a shootout to decide the winner. The tie had ended without goals after another draw in the first leg last week. The last team to reach the group stages was Mbababane Swallows in 2018. Before CAF increased the package in 2017; group stages qualifiers were entitled to E5.8 million. In summary, the champions will receive E36.7 million while runners-up will take home E17.7 million. The holders are Egypt’s Al Ahly while Kaizer Chiefs were runners-up.

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