{"id":8186,"date":"2022-06-24T10:02:09","date_gmt":"2022-06-24T10:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/eswatini-ranked-20th-best-league-in-africa"},"modified":"2022-06-24T10:27:04","modified_gmt":"2022-06-24T10:27:04","slug":"eswatini-ranked-20th-best-league-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/eswatini-ranked-20th-best-league-in-africa","title":{"rendered":"ESWATINI RANKED 20TH BEST LEAGUE IN AFRICA!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Eswatini. <\/strong><\/span>Eswatini\u2019s league features among the top 20 professional football leagues in Africa as per the latest rankings.<\/b><\/p>\n

The rating is mainly based on competitiveness, sponsorship and administration of the various leagues in the 54 members of the Confederation of African Football (CAF). MTN Eswatini is the sponsor of the Holy Grail of Eswatini football. The past season\u2019s sponsored package was E6 million, while recently-crowned champions Royal Leopard walked away with E1 million.<\/p>\n

According to information sourced from thesportsbay.com \u2013 a website that gives regular sports news updates on a daily basis to millions of readers around the world; the country\u2019s league is ranked 20 behind Zimbabwe\u2019s Premier League. This is not the first time the Premier Soccer League (PLE) has been ranked in the best top 20 as in 2014 the country was ranked 14th in Africa.<\/p>\n

PLE Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Kenneth Makhanya said this was a step in the right direction as this was an improvement looking at where they came from. \u201cI would like to congratulate the PLE for being in the top 20 in CAF; this shows great improvement looking at where we come from. A great job has been done, but this does not mean that we should relax; instead we should work harder to ensure that next time we get even better results.<\/p>\n

Challenges<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you consider the challenges football leagues had to overcome since the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020, one can only salute this achievement by the PLE. The PLE Board of governors, executive committee and staff have worked really hard to ensure that the leagues complete their fixtures,\u201d he said. Makhanya said special acknowledgement should go to the Eswatini Football Association (EFA), Referees Association and Coaches Association for their valuation contribution to the PLE. \u201cEswatini MTN deserves special recognition for the role it has played, in continuing to sponsor the PLE despite the lockdowns and empty stadiums football had to deal with; Y\u2019ello MTN has been a true friend, partner and sponsor to the PLE,\u201d Makhanya said.<\/p>\n

He said going forward, the challenge of getting a stadium that complies with CAF standards needed to be addressed. \u201cPlaying our home games out of country is a serious impediment to developing local football. We need to work together to resolve this challenge. As we prepare for a new season, we hope that Somhlolo Stadium will become available for PLE matches and that we can finalise sponsors for the knockout cups that have not been played due to COVID-19 restrictions,\u201d he said. In these rankings the Egyptian Premier League is ranked the best ahead of Morocco\u2019s Botola Pro. The top five is completed by Tunisia\u2019s Ligue Professionnelle, Algeria\u2019s Ligue Professionelle 1 and South Africa\u2019s DStv Premiership, respectively.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Eswatini<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Eswatini. Eswatini\u2019s league features among the top 20 professional football leagues in Africa as per the latest rankings. The rating is mainly based on competitiveness, sponsorship and administration of the various leagues in the 54 members of the Confederation of African Football (CAF). MTN Eswatini is the sponsor of the Holy Grail of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":8185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,17,16],"tags":[234,248,249],"class_list":["post-8186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-eswatini","tag-eswatini"],"yoast_head":"\nESWATINI RANKED 20TH BEST LEAGUE IN AFRICA! - Eswatini<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Eswatini\u2019s league features among the top 20 professional football leagues in Africa as per the latest rankings. ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/eswatini-ranked-20th-best-league-in-africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ESWATINI RANKED 20TH BEST LEAGUE IN AFRICA!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Eswatini\u2019s league features among the top 20 professional football leagues in Africa as per the latest rankings. ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/eswatini-ranked-20th-best-league-in-africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Eswatini\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-06-24T10:02:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-06-24T10:27:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/sites\/33\/2022\/06\/postQueueImg_9-62b5915c6b043.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"540\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/eswatini-ranked-20th-best-league-in-africa#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/eswatini-ranked-20th-best-league-in-africa\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"ESWATINI RANKED 20TH BEST LEAGUE IN AFRICA!\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-06-24T10:02:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-06-24T10:27:04+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/eswatini-ranked-20th-best-league-in-africa\"},\"wordCount\":473,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/eswatini-ranked-20th-best-league-in-africa#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/sites\/33\/2022\/06\/postQueueImg_9-62b5915c6b043.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Eswatini\",\"Eswatini\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"sport\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/eswatini-ranked-20th-best-league-in-africa#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/eswatini-ranked-20th-best-league-in-africa\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/eswatini-ranked-20th-best-league-in-africa\",\"name\":\"ESWATINI RANKED 20TH BEST LEAGUE IN AFRICA! 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