PROVIDING CONTRACEPTIVES AT THE MATERNITY WARD

My dearest readers ... Quickly now, my green flies on the Sigwaca House wall tell me the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) Executive Committee met last Friday to deliberate, on many issues affecting the game, but primarily the deadly COVID-19, an invisible enemy that has turned the world upside down, literally and figuratively speaking.

At the time of compiling this State-of-the-Nation-Sports-Address (SONSA) yesterday, shortly after I had made my scrumptious home-made English breakfast at 10:30am, the greatest human tragedy in the turn of the 21st century had already claimed 165 257 lives and 2 406 745 people confirmed to have tested positive around the world.

This is scary by any stretch of imagination. That’s why one commends the EFA for finally seeing the light and attending to the threat posed by this pandemic but the lackadaisical approach and clutching at straws is not good enough.

criticism

Just like Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has faced a barrage of criticism from that country’s media, for not being pro-active on the threat by the deadly virus, our EFA has been burying its head in the sand, hoping to dodge the bullet. But the reality is that Eswatini is not an island and we already have one death reported from COVID-19.

Indications are that, the worse is yet to come given our relaxed partial lockdown, government’s inability to provide the adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) and generally the failure to tackle the issue from grass root level through the Tinkhundla system pillars which is bucopho (constituency councillors), tindvuna tetinkhundla (constituency headmen) and the Members of Parliament who should be at the centre of it all.

As it is, when football nay government finally smells the COVID coffee, and acts decisively, it will be like dishing out contraceptives in the maternity ward – a fruitless exercise. The horse would have long bolted.
I am cognisant of the efforts to teach the teams’ medical personnel about COVID-19 by the EFA recently but the constituency football, overall, is a sitting duck to the pandemic.

The reported E600 000 budget is, in all honesty, just – excuse my French – chicken pooh given the gargantuan task at hand. We are talking about 700 registered teams in the country, which translates to about 18 000 players or more.

Then you have 20 000 or more religious followers of the game. What plan does the EFA have to ensure all these people are safe from the pandemic even post this era? If and when football season resumes, what are the plans in place to ensure everybody is safe especially in our football stadiums?

These are the issues the EFA should have long discussed and came up with solutions to. The silence from their part is deafening.
Even small yet important issues like spreading the same messages as government on the precautionary messages on the pandemic are not visible.
Having one or two messages on the Facebook page is not enough.

We need a vigorous advocacy plan in this regard. Then there is also a COVID-19 National Resource Mobilisation Committee (NRMC) put in place by government, but the EFA has contributed nothing. 

plans

As it is now, the EFA and the Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) should be telling us what are the plans going forward tentatively in the event the extension on the lockdown continues beyond the May 20 they had set as the end of the football suspension.
More efficiently run leagues like the English Premier League have already released a tentative programme.

Then of course, FIFA has set up an Emergency Relief Fund for the pandemic, how is the EFA working around this to ensure Eswatini football can also benefit given the scenario that our football office and most, if not all its programme, are fully funded by FIFA. This is not the time to fold arms and hope things will sort themselves out. It is time to act.
Otherwise acting later will certainly feel like handing out contraceptives in a maternity ward!
Phew!

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