Mikia Kalati
ORGANISERS of the debut Econet Soccer Spectacular scheduled for Setsoto Stadium this Saturday say everything is on course for the tournament.
The competition was recently introduced by the league sponsors, Econet Telecom Lesotho in partnership with the Premier League Management Committee (PLCM) to prepare premiership clubs before the beginning of the new season.
The tournament will feature four of the premier league teams to be voted for by the public through a short message service (SMS).
Econet are in their second year as the league sponsors having returned after an eight-year absence and have vowed to help improve the standards of the game by introducing different initiatives to help the clubs financially.
All the money that will be raised from gate takings on the day will be shared among the fourteen league teams as start-up funds for the new season that gets underway on 18 September.
The winner of the tournament will pocket 40 percent of the gate takings of the day while the runner-up gets 30 percent while each of the semi-finals will get fifteen percent of the money.
The rest of the other teams will get two thirds of the gate takings.
PLMC general manager Tsitso Monaheng told this publication that all is in place for the tournament while the voting was expected to continue until midnight yesterday to determine the four teams that will play in the tournament.
“All is in place for the games and we have an organising committee that has been working on all the preparations to ensure everything is ready by Saturday,” Monaheng said.
“The committee is made up of members from the league and our sponsor in Econet.”
Monaheng said he is hopeful that the tournament will set the tone for the new premier league season.
Lioli were leading the votes by 8155 votes nine hours before the closing date with Bantu, LCS and Linare among the four top teams in the race to win the right to play in the competition.
“Of course, we are confident that the tournament will improve the spirit before the new season.
“The voting was very slow in the opening days but we are hopeful that it will improve heading into the final days as people vote for their teams to play in the pre-season tournament,” Monaheng said.
