NO MORE LOANS, 10% CLAIMS – CARMICHAEL

MBABANE – The Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) is operating on a tight budget.

As a consequence to this, which was also brought about by COVID-19, to boost their coffers, the PLE is no longer giving out money to clubs – no loans or advancements are handed out to desperate clubs anymore despite that football only has a limited number of 500 fans in venues outside of Mavuso Sports Centre, which is the only one while the inactive Somhlolo National Stadium allowed 2 000 spectators. It is only COVID-19 jabbed spectators that are allowed into watching the games. PLE Chairman Mark Carmichael said while they had only been elected into office one and half years ago, it felt like 10 years to him.

proud

“The league is run on a tight budget, but I am proud of us and our staff for showing that we can actually host events and we are among the best. We did so with the league week in and week out and had successful workshops. “We had to hold back on the 10 per cent claims we found were done before us and also we stopped the loans to clubs. In our audited financials, we turned deficits into positives. PLE is now run like a business,” said Carmichael. The chairman told media personnel last Friday that in such a short period, they had some positives to look into and celebrate even though he did not want to sound like he was blowing their own horn. Carmichael spoke about the television deals with SuperSport and Eswatini TV and the introduction of a financial policy to operate on. He said they had to learn to come into office during the COVID-19 era, to find other means of revenue to boost their tight budget.

uncovered

“There is so much money under the rocks that needs to be uncovered but we have done our part as an Executive Committee that set out with one vision, to see football turn professional and probably see our clubs also getting grants from the organisation. Now it is time we put down the tools and let the real owner use them to take us to the next level. We’re now leaving the boat to the CEO Kenneth Makhanya to build a ship that can sail the ocean,” said Carmichael.

partnered

He said they had also partnered with government under tourism while Business Eswatini (BE) had also been offered the chance under the MediaMora involving the SuperSport deal that will see monthly PLE Show aired in one of their channels. Meanwhile, the PLE had recently announced that it was owed millions in Emalangeni by clubs that were advanced with cash as well as unpaid fines which date back several years. However, in 2020, the PLE wrote-off loans amounting to over 460 000 before the current Executive Committee also resolved to scrape off debts by non-existent teams. The 10 per cent was money claimed by Executive Committee members for their sittings. The PLE now has Makhanya to try and set up all feasible revenue streams. He was unveiled last Friday afternoon at Sigwaca House.

challenge

Makhanya spoke strongly about operating within the budget they had, but said he was ready and up for the challenge. One of the things he spoke about was the struggle in paying salaries by teams, saying it was one thing he would like to see not happening while he was CEO for the next two years. This means he had the task of coming up with means to bring in the cash at the organisation to see the clubs sooner or later getting grants to boost their management. Worth mentioning is that, even the country’s big teams were also part of the loans and some were still repaying back their debts to the office of the elite league. PLE COO Pat Vilakati said they resolved to write-off debts of all teams they could not track anymore or teams that had ceased existence but could not recall the figures involved.

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