Africa-Press – Lesotho. The second round of the 2020/21 Vodacom Premier League season is set to kick-off this weekend but defending champions Bantu will not be involved. Bantu were scheduled to play Lesotho Mounted Police Service (LMPS) but LMPS have since requested the league to postpone the game because ‘Simunye’ are missing three players who are with the national team at the COSAFA Cup in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
Other games, however, are still scheduled to continue barring any late changes. The 2020/21 Premier League season, which began last September, has already been severely affected by the coronavirus.
The league was shut down because of the pandemic in January until a decision to resume play was made in May. As a result, the league has been forced to cram a schedule programme that normally takes eight months to complete into three months.
This league campaign is scheduled to end on September 4 and it is unclear when the new season will start. However, the 2021/22 season has already been affected and will likely start in October or November.
As things stand, only six teams have completed the full first round fixture of 13 matches. Those teams are Lioli, Lijabatho, CCX, Manonyane, Lifofane and Sefothafotha.
How the Premier League Management Committee (PLMC) will reschedule the postponed games will be interesting. The league’s fixture backlog is already heavy and the PLMC has scheduled games on weekends and midweek between now and August 22.
There is one free week until August 28 and after that there is also a free week before the season ends on September 4. These could be the days the PLMC schedules the games left behind to be played.
Second-placed Matlama, who are fighting for the Premier League title, will be in action against CCX this weekend as they look to keep up with Bantu. A win would take ‘Tse Putsoa’ to the top of the league for the first time since 2019 given that Bantu are not playing this weekend, but the champions would have two games in hand.
The weekend’s biggest game is perhaps the one between Lesotho Correctional Service (LCS) and Lesotho Defence Force (LDF). LCS are missing their head coach Shalane Lehohla who is with the national team at the COSAFA Cup. Whether the game will continue is unknown but at the time of writing it was on schedule to be played.
Meanwhile, Premier League teams have suffered a blow because last week the government announced that due to surging cases of COVID-19, football matches will be played without spectators which means teams will not be making money from gate-takings, which is the lifeblood for many clubs.
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