MASERU — In an embarrassing episode for local football, some participants at an administration course were upset when they were told they would not get free T-shirts.
The course was facilitated by the English Football Association (FA).
Paul Mullen, the FA’s business support manager who was conducting the workshop, was forced to address the issue after participants kept on asking about the freebies.
The participants said they had heard that the FA had sent in advance to the Lesotho Football Association T-shirts to be doled out to workshop participants.
But Mullen said there was nothing like that.
“We don’t have any more gifts for you,” Mullen told the participants.
“You have bags and certificates and hopefully that will be enough to help you develop football back in your communities.
“So stop asking me . . . about more gifts you think you are entitled to.”
Mullen later told the Lesotho Times a couple of people had approached him for T-shirts.
“I had to respond to a couple of people who had approached me saying we had sent T-shirts for them a month before the workshop,” he said.
“I wanted to make the point that there were no more gifts for them and stop it before it had gone out of hand.”
Mullen said the FA had given the workshop participants bags, pens, notepads and certificates in an “effort to help develop football in Lesotho”.
