Moorosi Tsiane
THE Premier League Management Committee (PLMC) has been left with egg in the face after it raised only M2 in its campaign to assist local football teams.
The PLMC has now been forced to abort the campaign.
The fundraising campaign was meant to assist league football players and staff during the ongoing Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
PLMC last month pleaded with all football supporters to contribute funds to help teams during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic induced break. However, the exercise clashed with that of premier league side Bantu which is also running a similar campaign.
This after the two parties clashed last month over the campaigns and Bantu were eventually slapped with a letter to show cause why it cannot be charged for misconduct for contravening premier league and A Division rules and regulations.
The two parties however, met and resolved to iron out their differences last week and the PLMC said it would now focus on raising funds from corporates.
And on Friday, PLMC public relations officer Moeketsi Ramakatsa told this publication on Friday that the campaign failed dismally and the shelved it.
“We only managed to collect M2… and decided to abort it and let teams source their own funding from their supporters or anyone else who could be interested in contributing through Ecocash,” Ramakatsa said.
Instead, the PLMC will now focus energy on engaging corporate world to raise funds.
Ramakatsa attributed the failure of their programme to a parallel fundraising initiative that is being run by premier league giants Bantu.
“The plan didn’t go as we planned because Bantu also had a similar programme, so other supporters hesitated to contribute funds that would be shared among the rest of the teams… We also failed to market the initiative adequately because we focused on the clash with Bantu.”
He said they never planned to compete with teams as appeared to be the case with Bantu but instead want to assist the teams.
“We have however, resolved to leave the teams raise funds on their own from individual well-wishers while we concentrate on getting funding from the corporate sector.
“In fact, we have three companies that have expressed a desire to assist the 14 premier league teams. We will share the money among teams once we have received it. It is our mandate as the PLMC to help our teams and that is what we have been trying to do. We are not here to cause confusion between us and the teams,” Ramakatsa said.
