‘BIG FOUR ’ READY TO RUN TO FIFA

MBABANE – No retreat, no surrender!

It seems the country’s ‘Big Four’ in Mbabane Swallows, Mbabane Highlanders, Manzini Wanderers and Moneni Pirates in their pursuit for ‘justice’ for their complaints over the country’s security forces sides. On top of accusing the security forces of unfair advantage, the teams that are operating under the ‘Simunye’ (we are one) slogan want the foreign quota to be increased from five to nine players before the kickoff the 2022/23 season. They feel this would ensure that they were still able to compete even if their best players are recruited by Green Mamba, Royal Leopard and Young Buffaloes.

They said fair play which is also required by FIFA would prevail locally when all teams dug into their pockets to run their teams, salaries of their players as well as paying those players’ salaries in accordance with the players’ contract. They feel that some teams are in an advantage because they believe they use government resources to run their teams and allege that players are not paid as per the contract they signed with their teams but are paid through government coffers.

Urgency

The ‘Big Four’ teams yesterday resorted to bring the matter to the attention of Premier League of Eswatini (PLE). Mbabane Highlanders Managing Director and ‘Simunye’ Concept Chairman Chief Ally Kgomongwe said they would reach out to the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) if PLE failed to adjust the foreign quota, which is a matter of urgency before the kickoff this coming season. Kgomongwe also mentioned that they were working very close with their legal team who gave them guidance on the matter and if the local football authoritied fails to resolve it, they would seek FIFA’s intervention. He said the urgent matter that needed to be addressed urgently was the readjustment of the foreign quota from five to nine players, so to cushion the non-security forces who were financially disadvantaged against the forces teams, who he said were recruiting the cream of the crop from them.

Yesterday’s meeting resolved to alert the PLE on this issue through an email which Moneni Pirates and the Simunye Concept secretary said they would forward to the PLE today. Yesterday’s meeting was once again between the ‘big four’ teams which the chairman said the issue at hand was not about numbers as they constituted a majority with their thousands of fans in the country.

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