PLAYING FOOTBALL WITHOUT AN AMBULANCE SUICIDAL – AMAZULU

DURBAN – South Africa’s DStv Premiership League side AmaZulu through their delegation  revealed that playing any football match without the availability of ambulances in match venues was suicidal for the players.

The official said in a meeting with Mbabane Swallows, where both teams had to verify and discus some logics of the game which was played on Friday. The official said this in light of one of their players, in former Kaizer Chiefs player Goerge Maluleka, who collapsed during the Ayanda Dlamini-led side’s game against Moroka Swallows, during a Premier Soccer League game staged at the Moses Mabhida Stadium earlier last month.

Requires

“The game against Mbabane Swallows will definitely have an ambulance not because FIFA requires that a game should always be played with one in a staduim, but because we have seen in the club when one of our players collapse. If there was no ambulance in the game we don’t know what would have happened to Maluleka and we will definitely will to have an ambulance for the game because we don’t want to put the players’ lives at risk,” he said. Meanwhile, in the MTN PremierLeague of Eswatini, local sides Madlenya and Sea Birds had their game abandoned at half-time with the former leading 2-0 at KaLanga Technical Centre. Sea Birds allegedly refused to continue with the match upon seeing that there was no ambulance and emergency services personnel at the venue, which were to be provided by the host team.

Initially, the match kicked off a few minutes later than its scheduled kick-off time, and both teams agreed to play until the ambulance and its personnel arrived at the stadium, but it did not until it was time for the second-half. The match officials had to call off the match. This led to the Premier League of swatini (PLE) led by former Mamelodo Sundowns General Manager (GM) Kenneth Makhanya, to state that any traveling team that would  refuse to play as a result of the lack of an ambulance in a stadium will be punished. The PLE made it clear that in that time such occurrences, any team that will be found guilty for refusing to play will be risking forfeiting the match and be fined up to E50 000. Seeing that clubs were failing to have the ambulances in the stadiums, the PLE office finally came into an agreement with the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) to take over as the service providers going forward.

Emergency

The PLE chief executive officer (CEO) said the Premier league would be responsible for the availability of the medical emergency service providers in all match venues, after it was seen that the medical emergency service providers were proving to be very costly for the teams, which had resulted in some games in the league not being played and some matches halted because of no ambulances, that were mandatory in all league games. Swallows’ long serving General Manager Sandile ‘Beyond 2000’ Zwane appreciated AmaZulu for taking the game with extra caution. “ We would like to thank AmaZulu for seeing the importance of having all the match logistics discussed and making sure that the players health was considered ,” he said. Umkhonto kaShaka were in Durban, South Africa ahead of their game against AmaZulu on Friday.

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