MASERU –– Matlama might not take part in this season’s Buddie Premier League.
Despite the final registration deadline passing on Monday, Tse Putsoa were still not officially registered.
The news spells further trouble for the record league champions who have experienced turmoil in recent months. Matlama elected a new executive committee just two weeks ago, their third this year.
“We were told (by LEFA) that the problem is we have two committees,” Tšiu Monne, Matlama public relations officer and member of the new executive committee, told the Lesotho Times.
“The old committee hasn’t yet accepted that they are no longer in charge and there hasn’t been a proper hand-over. LEFA is going to meet with the old committee this week.”
Monne decried what he felt were inconsistencies in LEFA’s stance towards Matlama’s new committee.
“When we were in negotiations (over players) with other clubs LEFA accepted it but they didn’t accept our registration as a club. There is a bit of inconsistency, they had no problem when other clubs bought our players,” Monne said.
However, Monne said he was confident Matlama will be part of the league in 2009/10.
“We don’t have a problem we believe the Premier League will work it out in the end,” Monne said.
“That cannot happen. We will play in the league. We have a committee that was chosen by the public and there is nothing more powerful than them.”
Matlama have promoted four players from their development side and signed four more from the lower divisions. They have also managed to hold on to Lesotho defender Nkau Lerotholi.
“Its a done deal. Nkau is staying with us. Its great news for the club it’s never good to lose such high quality players, the priority is to build a team for Matlama,” Monne said. “We did manage to register players before the deadline. But they are not done deals, it’s not easy when you are dealing with lower league sides because the people with the paperwork are hard to find.”
