MASERU-THE future of Lesotho’s football hangs in the balance as teams struggle to cope with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on their finances.
Across the premier league teams have seen their revenues plummet as sponsors become frugal and gate takings disappear.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic last year, football clubs have had to play matches behind closed doors with no supporters allowed into the grounds.

Football has now been on hold for a month as a precaution against rising numbers of Covid cases, but clubs are still incurring administration costs as well as having to fork out salaries.

The outcry from Vodacom Premier League clubs is that without match-day revenue they are unable to fulfil their obligations.

Clubs say that even when football was being played without supporters before last month’s stoppage, they were losing money.

Not all football clubs pay salaries, but even those that don’t pay their players still incur costs in transporting players to training and matches, as well as paying for meals and medics amongst other things.

Although only three clubs – Bantu, Lioli and Matlama – have a sizable pull to their games, the little money all teams make from gate-takings goes a long way towards taking care of expenses such as transport and meals.
With no fans on the grounds that relief cash is no longer coming in.

Former Premier League Management Committee (PLMC) and Matlama chairman Ikarabele Sello says with the way things are heading in this pandemic, teams will soon be unable to sustain themselves.

He said the PLMC and Lesotho Football Association (LEFA) need to look for ways to help clubs or the consequences could be disastrous.
As things stand, the majority of teams do not have sponsors and Sello said unless the supporters are allowed back into the grounds, there is no silver lining for clubs.

“With the way things are, there is no way out for clubs unless there can be an exception for supporters to come back, but then when (the fans) come back, the only teams that will see it viable are those with a huge following being Matlama, Bantu, Lioli and Linare,” Sello said.
“For most of the smaller teams when they have made money it is when they have made M5 000, so that money can’t sustain any team under this pandemic,” he added.

“If we still want to watch football (in the future) I think the Premier League and LEFA should see how they can assist teams in light of this. The Premier League has to get a sponsor that will help the teams,” Sello said.
It was the same story of desperation when thepost spoke to officials from several clubs.

Clubs can no longer cope financially and are facing a dark future if things do not change.
There seems to be a difference in opinion when it comes to what should have happened with the money teams received from the Lesotho Football Association (LEFA) as part of the FIFA Relief Fund, however.

Last week Lebohang Thotanyana, Lioli’s president, said ‘Tse Nala’ have been forced to slash their payroll which he said currently stands at M1.5 million per year. The star-studded Teyateyaneng club are just one of many teams that have been rattled by the Covid-19 pandemic.

He said they have taken a huge financial hit and their revenues have plummeted over the past year. As a result, Lioli announced a 50 percent salary cut for players last week. It is the second time in a year Lioli have been forced to reduce their players’ salaries after doing so last June.

‘Tse Nala’, like many, are in financial straits with no income from match-days to lean on. The money Lioli were getting from their sponsors has also diminished and the only sponsor they are left with is their main sponsor, Alliance Insurance Company.

It has left the club with no choice but to cut salaries, management said.
Thotanyana said he spoke with the players and they were notified about the salary cut.

The allowances players will be getting will be coming from a fund the club created.
“Our payroll is close to M1,5 million per year, that’s how much we have to cough up every year, we pay way over M100 000 in a month,” Thotanyana said.

“If you play with no income coming in, you incur almost M10 000 per game.
Just to hire the ground in Maputsoe, if it is our home game, costs M3 000.
Transport is M2 600 and if you add normal expenses like food, it’s close to M10 000 (per game). That’s how much we were spending when the Premier League said no supporters,” the Lioli president added.

“Even the revenues we get from our sponsors are down, we have taken a serious knock financially as a club and it’s not just Lioli,” Thotanyana said.

“It’s just that Lioli has been professional about it that we have issued a formal notification to our players. When the government bans football it means players cannot fulfil their contracts because they are not able to come to the club to train or honour official games. Our (main) revenue is gate takings, and if they are not there it means we are on a dry spell,” he added.

Thotanyana said he suggested LEFA use the relief fund to buy vaccines for clubs instead of giving it to the teams but the idea was shot down.
Over the past year, all Premier League clubs have received just under M150 000 from LEFA. The money came in two batches, the first in August last year and the second in February.

“I gave advice of which I was highly criticised for where I suggested that LEFA should not give us the money, but instead they must buy the vaccine, but because the clubs wanted the money at the time they said they want the money,” Thotanyana said.
“I didn’t want these ‘stop and go’ we have now, look where we are,” he said.

“We are in August, normally in a matter of a few weeks we should open a new season but we are still at the beginning of the previous season and this is a serious inconvenience to what is going to happen (going forward for the league),” Thotanyana said.
Thotanyana said football’s plight is not being helped by a lack of support from the government.

“The fact that the government does not understand football as an industry has really hit us hard, because if there is any industry that is more organised and Covid ready and compliant, it is football. We were forced to buy PPE (personal protective equipment), we were forced to appoint trained Covid compliance officers and security officers.”

The English Premier League, for example, told the clubs before their season which starts this weekend that players and staff would need to be vaccinated against Covid-19 amid fears that the virus could disrupt the season.

The directive came as part of the UK government’s wider plan to require all attendees at football matches to show a Covid-19 pass from October 1, with players needing to have had two doses of the vaccine.

Some players in England are still resisting the jab and there is no telling if local footballers would have agreed to get the vaccine as it is not yet mandatory to get the vaccine in Lesotho.

Some believe Thotanyana’s idea may have worked, but an official from another club suggested it could have never have worked because clubs were in dire need of financial rescue and needed the money in their accounts.

That is one thing many agree on – some clubs will go bust if the financial situation local football clubs are facing does not change.
Former PLMC and Liphakoe spokesperson Moeketsi Ramakatsa said the clubs’ money struggles did not begin during the pandemic but it has made things much worse.

He said at some point teams may not even have money to transport players to the ground.
“Some teams are going to die. Some will drop to the lower level because of this,” Ramakatsa said.

“The costs are high and we are not talking about just match-day here, just training, transport. It got worse now when there were midweek games (in the league) and there were no supporters.”
The teams in the greatest peril are the so-called small teams.

If the league’s big teams, with the financial backing of some of the biggest companies in the country, are struggling to keep up, one can only imagine what the small clubs are going through.

The Likhopos, Sefothafothas and Swallows of the league – these are clubs with no sponsors and no ticket revenue to speak of.
The only time they make any money of note is when they host Bantu, Lioli or Matlama, and even that is only three times out of 26 matches in a season.

PLMC spokesperson Qamako Mahao said the league is aware clubs are in dire financial need. He said the league will soon host a chairmen’s forum meeting with the leaders of all the 16 teams and discuss the way forward.
LEFA’s secretary general Mokhosi Mohapi says the situation is not looking good for the league.

“Their coffers are dry and no money is coming because there are either no games or the games are being played but there are no supporters. It’s a tough situation,” Mohapi says.

He said even if supporters are allowed back into the ground the crowds are likely to be slow because the Covid-19 pandemic has cut the people’s disposable incomes.
“It’s either food or a football match. The choice is simple”.

The other problem, Mohapi said, is that some corporate sponsors that have sustained come clubs are likely to pull back due to financial constraints.
“The same is likely to happen with well-wishers who have been helping smaller teams.”

What worries Mohapi the most is that even when the spectators are back the teams will have to deal with additional costs caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

For instance, players will have to be tested for Covid-19 before matchday. Given their financial troubles, most clubs are likely to opt for the rapid test that costs M350.

In that case, it would cost a club M6300 to test an 18-member team.
That brings the total cost of the tests to M189 000 over the 30 games in a season.

Most teams cannot afford that kind of cost even if they cut their matchday teams to the barest minimum. Bantu FC got M500 000 for winning the league.

Swallows, which came last, got M30 000.
“It clear that the future is bleak. The cost of running a club keeps increasing while the revenue is going down,” Mohapi said.

Tlalane Phahla