Africa-Press – Eswatini. How much is the champions’ prize this season in the MTN Premier League? How much is the first round prize? These are the main questions when it comes to this league, which has gone up to match day five with its prize breakdown still unknown. It is certainly motivating to know how much you are competing for in any competition with money or at least prizes before you start, so you can prepare for it the best way you can. However, it would appear this is not the case for the MTN Premier League as to date, it remains unknown to the media and public if the league prizes have changed or not. This is more so because even when the new sponsorship package was launched, the prizes were not included.
This also was the case when the rules and regulations of the current season were released to clubs and the media. Both teams and individual prizes are publicly unknown when under normal circumstances, it should all be available during the launch. This is amid that the Player of the Month had already been presented once, leaders Madlenya’s Sehluko Nkabindze taking it. His award prize was E6 000, unchanged from last season for elite players. An unchanged package of E6.5m, which included the National First Division (NFD), was launched by the sponsor MTN Eswatini and Premier League of Eswatini (PLE).
Recall
“If you can recall, the league’s Rules and Regulations have missed this part for two seasons running now. Even last season, the PLE didn’t have that annexure at first, it came later and it’s quite not normal,” said a concerned source. Indeed, it was not until this publication questioned the PLE Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Kenneth Makhanya, about the status quo that the prizes were availed to the media and eventually made public last season. Our sister publication, the Times Sunday, also tried in vain to get the prizes last week, with at least over six officials, including the PLE Chairperson Mark Carmichael and some of his executive committee members.
However, it still bore no fruit as it was found that Makhanya was the only PLE officer at liberty to avail the prizes, but was currently on leave. He is expected back in office this week. “I cannot help in this matter as it was being handled by the CEO, unfortunately, he is currently on leave,” one of the PLE officials responded. Carmichael was quite taken aback by this matter. He expressed shock that the league prizes remained a mystery when he had believed the media got it from the launch. “This is shocking. It’s a pity I also have been busy with other commitments, but I certainly thought that was made available during the launch. Let me make some calls and I’ll get back to you as our CEO is not in the office,” Carmichael briefly said.
He was called last Saturday evening a few more times but did not pick up.
Assistance
Also called for assistance was PLE Executive Committee Chairperson Polycarp Dlamini, who indicated that it was hard to say much, especially because Makhanya was on leave. Dlamini and Carmichael were called again yesterday but only the former responded. “Makhanya is still on leave and he is returning on Thursday (tomorrow),” he said before saying he would also call back, but did state clearly that the CEO had access to the sought-after information. WhatsApp texts had also been sent to Makhanya on this matter, at least twice last week, but all in vain. Meanwhile, the league’s last season saw first round winners take home E100 000, while the champions pocketed E1 million.
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