Moorosi Tsiane
NEDBANK Lesotho were last weekend announced as the new sponsors of an A Division Top8 tournament where they will be injecting M250 000 annually for three years into the competition.
This was good news for football fanatics especially those who support A Division.
The tournament has been enrolled by the Lesotho Football Association (LeFA) in the past but it was inconsistent.
Winners of the tournament will this year pocket M25 000 while runners-up will get M20 000.
In the same way, the winners of the Champ of Champs will pocket M25 000 while the runners-up will get M13 000.
The matches started last weekend and they had some surprises as both teams which won North and South streams (Lijabatho and Lifofane) were knocked out in the quarter finals by Lithabaneng Golden and Limkokwing University respectively.
Joining them for the semifinals scheduled for 25 May are Litšilo and CCX.
I would like to congratulate ADMACO for this sponsorship and also welcome Nedbank into football as this is their first time sponsoring football on the local scene.
For a long time, there has been an outcry due to lack of sponsorship in local sports and it is very promising that for a change, we are seeing the corporate world coming out to invest in sports.
I don’t really want to focus much on the prizes because for me, showing interest counts for something and now it will be up to the administrators to ensure that they impress the sponsors so that they will feel the need to maybe pump in more money.
At the same time, while they are trying to impress sponsors, I still believe administration should not be compromised and everything must the right way.
On the other hand, sponsors need to understand where to draw the line and not end up doing administrative duties for the beneficiaries of their benevolence as I have seen happening with some.
Welcome to local football Nedbank. We hope that you will stay long and help in the development of football because it is only when there are multiple competitions that the standard of football can improve as players will also get motivated to push harder.
I also take this opportunity to wish my former colleague and mentor Mikia Kalati well in his new job as the LeFA Media and Information Officer.
For the past five years that we have been working together, I leant a lot from him and he contributed immensely towards making me the sports reporter that I am today.
Kalati is one of the best sport reporters in the country and hopefully, his move to LeFA will help turn things around in terms of information dissemination as this has been one of the organisation’s weakest points.
Congratulations my brother, I wish you all the best.
