Africa-Press – Lesotho. The Premier League Management Committee (PLMC) has corrected a mistake it made yesterday during Econet’s 2019/20 Premier League (EPL) awards. Bantu skipper Litšepe Marabe was the big winner on the day as he went home with two awards, one for the Player of the Season and another for the Player’s Player of the Season.
The awards carried prize money of M10 000 and M7 500 respectively. However, there was major confusion when the Top Scorer of the Season trophy was given to Marabe’s teammate, Lazola Jokojokwane.
Embarrassingly, the Premier League made a giant gaffe because when the 2019/20 league season ended, Marabe was the league’s top goalscorer with 14 goals.
Champions Bantu confirmed that fact as well and even congratulated Marabe for the feat on the club’s Facebook page on Tuesday. The Premier League spokesperson, Qamako Mahao, admitted the PLMC’s blunder yesterday.
He said the PLMC made a mistake by counting the goals Jokojokwane scored in all competitions even though yesterday’s award was strictly for Premier League games.
The Premier League has also apologised to Jokojokwane and Econet Lesotho, who hosted the event and were the league’s sponsors last season. Mahao said the mistake has been corrected.
Marabe will get his top scorer award and its accompanying M9 000 prize money which takes his total winnings from the Econet league awards to M26 500. Marabe’s winnings are the most a player has won individually at the league’s end of season honours.
The silky attacker was instrumental for Bantu on the way to their championship victory last year. His goals helped ‘A Matšo Matebele’ establish a 16 point gap between them and second placed Matlama before the season was halted last April after only 18 of the allocated 24 matches per team were played.
The 2019/20 season was cut short because of the coronavirus. It was the final season of Econet’s three-year sponsorship of the elite league. Econet were eventually replaced by Vodacom Lesotho and the 2019/20 season awards were never given to players.
Speaking on behalf of Econet at yesterday’s show, ‘Mapusetso Ntšepe said the company had planned to host a big event last year but had to postpone it due to the pandemic. She said Econet worked well with the PLMC for the duration of their contract, even though the last year was affected by the virus.
She said Econet will continue to play its role in supporting various sporting codes and the end of its contract with the Premier League was not the end of the company’s involvement in sports.
Ntšepe also congratulated the award winners. “This should be the beginning not the end, there is a lot to be done to support sports in Lesotho,” she said.
Bantu’s dominance last season was clear they claimed every award except the accolade for the Young Player of the Season which went to Lioli’s Tieho Ntulo.
The PLMC’s chairperson, Mosa Seoli, said everyone has a role to play in professionalizing football so that players can earn their living from the game. He said the PLMC wants to make football a sellable product whereby anyone who wants to be involved in it has to pay.
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