Virus knocks out LDF

MASERU – Lesotho Defence Force (LDF) have been struck by an illness that threatens to derail their Econet Premier League plans.
LDF have written to the Premier League Management Committee (PLMC) asking the league to postpone this weekend’s tie against Bantu because of the virus.

It would be the second match in a row ‘Sohle-Sohle’ miss after Sunday’s game against Kick4Life was postponed at the last minute.
In total, 17 LDF players were admitted to hospital with a bug on Sunday and the club says they haven’t recovered sufficiently to take the field this weekend against the Econet Premier League leaders.
LDF are tenth in the league and the development does nothing to soothe a disappointing start to the season which sees the army side with one win from eight games.

Last season Motheo Mohapi’s side finished fourth and were tipped as potential trophy contenders this term.
The mystery illness, however, has club officials dumbfounded and LDF spokesperson Donny Ntakha said the team is in no shape to take the field.
“The team is not ready to play at all, on Monday we didn’t train; the players were at the hospital. (Tuesday) we also didn’t train. The players are not fine, some have sores now,” Ntakha told thepost yesterday.
The sudden illness flared last Saturday when one player complained of feeling sick during a training session.

LDF’s technical staff put the player aside assuming he would get better while his teammates continued with training as usual.
Instead, the illness spread.
“What happens is that normally before every league game, whether we are playing on Saturday or Sunday, the players go on camp on Friday,” Ntakha said.

“On Saturday morning around 8am when the players were on the training pitch one player started to complain about a stomach ache and he sat out the training session. Later after about an hour another eight players started to complain about the same thing. They were vomiting. We immediately took them to hospital at Makoanyane to get help because we were playing the next day,” he added.
But that wasn’t the end of the story.

“Some of the players who were not affected on Saturday then woke up on Sunday with the same problem as well, it was now about 17 players (who were affected),” Ntakha said.

“Some were given antibiotics while some were on drips and we informed the Premier League that we could not play (because) we had a problem. They sent an official who confirmed the situation and our game (against Kick4Life) was postponed. On Monday the players went to the hospital to do tests and even more players had the same problem as well and some were even complaining about headaches.”

Ntakha could not reveal the exact illness or its cause because LDF are waiting for blood test results.
He said because ‘Sohle-Sohle’ is an institutional team the situation is now being dealt with by LDF’s management and only after investigations would they know what happened.

PLMC spokesperson Moeketsi Ramakatsa confirmed the league had received a request from the LDF to postpone Saturday’s game against Bantu.
However, at the time of writing no decision had been made whether to grant LDF’s request or not.

Tlalane Phahla