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SIMUNYE GROOVE IN FOOTBALL REVOLUTION

18/01/2022 08:03:00 BY Lwazi's Pandora's Box

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My dearest readers ...

On a wintry afternoon at the then Tum’s George Hotel in 2005, the dearly departed Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) chairman, Victor ‘Maradona’ Gamedze flanked by another late son of the soil, Henry ‘Shushu’ Mthethwa and Charles ‘Ace’ Jele, spoke like a man possessed. I was a thin-as-a-rake, wet-behind-the-ears scribe, scribbling away as Gamedze stressed why they were taking matters into their hands as PLE in putting in place the Board of Governors structure. I made a cursory glance across the room and saw the then Chairman Moses ‘Mkhulu’ Motsa nodding his head gingerly. Sundowns Chairman at the time, Tum Du-Pont had his head in his hands; Hub Sundowns director France ‘Malume’ Du-Pont was giggling like a bunch of school girls having found the head teacher in a compromising situation with one of their own.

glum

The late Zwicle FC director Busi Dlamini, surrounded by all oxymoron testosterone in the room, offered a wry smile like a glum grandmother watching the grandchild dance, the then ‘Twalaza’ dance on Christmas Day. Former scribe Celani Shongwe looked at me like a doctor monitoring a patient he had diagnosed and then belted into that trademark smile that would win any Colgate advertisement on television. He was as excited as an old hen that lifted its buttocks only to realise it had laid a golden egg. It was a watershed moment. A seed was planted. The PLE stopped being a Management Committee of the Eswatini Football Association to be a fully-fledged organisation that was to be run by the owners of the club themselves. The structure was a ‘copy and paste’ from South Africa’s National Soccer League (NSL) chaired by the all-too-powerful Orlando Pirates Football Club boss, Dr Irvin ‘Iron Duke’ Khoza. A decision was taken that a chief executive officer (CEO) be hired as per the dictates of the Board of Governors structure.

On Friday, another chapter was re-written in our football history. The ‘Big Three’ teams, Mbabane Highlanders, Manzini Wanderers and Mbabane Swallows teamed up with Vovovo FC and Rangers FC to raise concerns on the running of the Premier League of Eswatini (PLE). My green flies on the Technical Centre wall where the meeting was held told me a football revolution is on the cards. The winds of change are blowing on the direction of the PLE Executive Committee which is now facing a ‘vote of no confidence’ from the Board members barely a year and half in office, having assumed the positions on September 19, 2020.

formed

The teams feel the Executive Committee, according to my deep throat in the ‘Simunye Group’, which was formed and announced last Friday, has committed ‘crimes’ that are as long as the book of Psalms. Teams feel the Executive Committee has spent a lot of time fighting each other and there is no proper feedback on a number of issues, in particular the knockout tournaments. Say your say Manzini Wanderers director Sandile ‘Chief’ Dlamini. “What we know is that the sponsors of the knockouts did not officially pull out. All we know is that we still have knockout tournaments. We need to know what is happening so that we have an idea how our seasons looks. The knockouts were boosting the teams financially.” Then of course, there is a hot potato of the relegation dilemma after two different set of rules were made available to the teams where one states that two teams will be relegated at the end of the season and another states that four teams will go down. Ordinarily such a thing would not happen at this top level of our game. But some of us are not surprised. We had a (MIS) Competitions Committee, in its infinite wisdom, deciding that three teams should be relegated at the end of last season which would have given birth to a 15-team league. How was that even possible? So every week there would have been a team on stand-bye?

Right now, we are almost in the tail end of the first round yet we are not even sure how many teams will be relegated at the end of this season. Say your say Mbabane Highlanders Managing Director, Chief Ally Kgomongwe, the founder of the newly-established ‘Simunye Group’. “We are the employers of football. We need our voices to be heard. I am just wondering why four should be relegated when we are fresh from COVID-19. We should be relegating only two teams.” The ‘Simunye Group’ are also livid that wrong payments at the PLE coincidentally benefitted members of the Executive Committee; Charles Matsebula of Black Swallows and Sibusiso ‘Scorpion; Nxumalo of Mhlume Peacemakers.

signatories

Again, how can four people, including the Chairman, Mark Carmichael, who are signatories to payments in the PLE, fail to pick the anomaly. Why didn’t the PLE leadership take immediate action about the mishap? Again, right now, the same Executive Committee has issued two adverts, looking for an accountant and a CEO. Shouldn’t they hire a CEO first then he/she is the one who will then hire the accountant. Isn’t that what corporate governance demands? Clearly, the PLE is in a forest but inexplicable can’t see the trees! That’s why the ‘Big Three’ teams are taking matters into their own hands to fix the glaring loopholes in the PLE administration, which leaves quite a lot to be desired. The ticketing for the MTN league games is another huge concern by the teams who feel the whole set up right now is benefitting the middleman rather than the teams. You can’t blame the teams for raising these issues because the truth is that we have not moved an inch in the past year and a half since we saw the back of the inept leadership of one Peter ‘Touch’ Magagula. ‘Touch’ must be laughing in his handkerchief seeing what has become of the organisation after his two wasted years in charge.

The PLE cannot continue to blame everything on the COVID-19 pandemic. They have failed to do the bare minimum and the administration flaws reflect badly on the Executive Committee, which has prompted the teams to look for an alternative.
This column, the State-of-the-Nation-Sports-Address (SONSA) has said it before and will continue to say this until the cows come home. It is criminal that the ‘Big Three’ teams in the country are not represented in the PLE Executive Committee. Instead relegated teams, swimming in the murky waters of the National First Division league and some struggling premier league teams have members in the Executive Committee. If the Executive Committee members’ teams are struggling in their respective leagues, why do we even expect the PLE to function properly?

lifeblood

The ‘Big Three’ teams are the lifeblood of football in the country. If I had things my way they should be having permanent seats in the Executive Committee. Their teams bring the revenue for the PLE and they are the ones the PLE leverage on for sponsorships. Yet they don’t sit on the first table which is shared by people whose teams are everything elite league teams shouldn’t be. It is time to stop pussyfooting around issues instead of stating the blindingly obvious that we cannot do one and the same thing and expect different results. Philosopher, Albert Einstein has a word for it: INSANITY. As we all look forward to Friday’s special meeting, we hope the ‘Simunye Group’ means what they say because our football needs a complete overhaul and one that will ensure our football is treated as a business as it ought to be.

Coincidentally, as it happened in 2005 when Victor ‘Maradona’ Gamedze made that passionate revolutionary speech at Tum’s George Hotel, the ‘Simunye Group’ made a declaration on the same day we commemorated the four-year anniversary of Gamedze’s sad demise – January 14. My sentiments on this declaration are as clear as daylight and I would borrow the wise words of another Victor, the legendary Victor Hugo, whose most famous quote goes: “Nothing else in the world…not all the armies…is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” Can I get an Amen.