Mbabane: The Eswatini Football Association (EFA) has received glowing praise from government for their prompt move to halt activities in early March.
Speaking through the Minister of Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs Harries Bulunga, government said football’s forward thinking laid the foundation for the country’s encouraging response to Covid-19. Football was one of the first industries to voluntary cancel activities back in March even before the country’s partial lockdown was announced.
Such patriotic and forward thinking action according to Bulunga channelled Eswatini towards its encouraging response to the virus, ensuring that multitudes of people who love and follow the game and those around them stayed safe.
The Ingwenyama Cup final between eventual champions Green Mamba and Mbabane Highlanders was the last football activity in the country back in March ahead of this weekend return to action with the 2020/21 MTN League season.
He continued that EFA would have found it difficult to curtail activities without the understanding and cooperation from its partners like MTN Eswatini and Eswatini Bank among others.
“We therefore wish to applaud MTN Eswatini and all football sponsors who collaborated with football structures to take this decision which helped save the lives of many Emaswati and contributed to helping avoid stretching our health system,” the minister of the crown said as he officially declared the upcoming season underway.
By Thursday night, Eswatini had 6 633 Coronavirus cases, after recording just 21 new cases on the day. An impressive 6 221 have recovered while 22 have sadly lost their lives with sports not spared following the passing of top football coach Thabo ‘Koki’ Vilakati and former Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) Chief Executive Officer John Mazibuko among others due to the novel Coronavirus.
Follow our WhatsApp Channel for the latest news:
Join Now
Discussion about this post