‘Merry Xmas’ double pay

MBABANE – Two participation fees for one club in a single league season is certainly abnormal.

The festive spirit is already here and spending money is what usually happens and when you get paid double, it is quite something but sometimes the double pay is not always a 13th cheque. Mistakes do happen. The Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) had the misfortune to pay one team twice when it disbursed this season’s participation fees for the MTN Premier League and MTN National First Division League teams about two weeks ago. One of the clubs (name deliberately withheld for now) got double the amount of E20 000 that the second tier league teams are entitled to for the current season. In essence, the concerned team, received E40 000.

The trouble now, however, is that the payout has allegedly caused tension in the organisation, especially among the top brass, the Executive Committee to be precise, especially after efforts to have the money returned by the team at the time the error was noted were met with a negative response.

“The team’s chairman made it clear he used up all the money as he had been expecting the participation fee and some other payment in the same region as what the PLE paid out. This is one for the chairman to handle but no team can benefit twice in participation fee, not in one season,” said an impeccable source.

PLE Chairman Mark Carmichael, who is said to have already tried to reason with the club, particularly its director, said this was an unfortunate situation but they were also unfortunately not in a position to comment at this point.

“It’s one of those unfortunate situations. We can’t comment on it right now but yes, the process to recover the money is underway but we’re handling it internally,” Carmichael said.

Pressed further on the matter, he insisted that the matter was an internal issue that they were already dealing with and they would recover the extra money that was paid to this particular club. The concerned director and Executive Committee member was also sought for comment over this matter. However, he could not immediately respond. Meanwhile, the PLE is in mourning after the demise of their Executive Committee member and businessman in Vovovo Co-Director Sipho ‘Tsetla’ Bhembe. The country woke up to the sad news on Friday morning. It was confirmed yesterday that Bhembe’s memorial will be held tomorrow at MDS High hall right in the capital city while he will be laid to his final resting place tomorrow at 5am at Engculwini in Manzini.