Walk-overs, over and over again!

SEDIBENG.-  For the past two weekends there were ‘walk-overs’ in structured games in the region with some teams failing to honour their Emfuleni Local Football Association’s (ELFA) Super League matches because there is a tournament that is taking place in Bophelong and most of the teams play there.

There were walk-overs at Boipatong and Bophelong Stadium because some of the teams claimed that their players were picked by other team in the tournament. This is the biggest challenge in our football, and this must be addressed sooner than later. TOUCHLINE also challenges those who organise tournaments to toe in line with our football structures because this a biggest problem in Sedibeng football. It is easy for players and teams to chose between tournaments and football structures like it has been a case for the past two weeks, walk-over after walk-over, over and over again.

Please don’t misunderstood me, TOUCHLINE does not have a problem with tournaments organisers but the teams that fail to inform the league that they will be participating in such tournament as the affiliated members.
We all know that our teams don’t have sponsorships and the only form of income is via tournaments, this is a fact. But TOUCHLINE believes having said that, there must be communication to avoid turning structured football useless in the eyes of the youngsters. It is not supposed to be like that to say the least. This is a national crisis with the teams giving the tournament first preference than the structured football for obvious reasons, as TOUCHLINE mentioned above. So we can’t fault those who chose tournament over structured games until our own league have their own organised tournaments with decent prices in the form of equipment because this is what is needed.

TOUCHLINE also challenges the tournament organisers to get rid of prize money and start introducing equipment as part of prizes. I will tell you what, some of these teams don’t spend the prize money that they won from the tournament to buy training and playing equipment but for other things. Point in case, players would share the prize money after they won the tournament, and this does not benefit the club. It is a fact, what we teach these youngsters is that football is all about money at a very young age. This is the reason those players are all over participating in those tournaments even if their clubs are no part of that tournament. TOUCHLINE wants to make a humble appeal to the tournament organisers to consider working with football structures to avoid this thing of the teams and players having to chose between the tournaments and the league. This affects the standard of football and weakens our leagues and football structures in this region to say the least.

It is not supposed to be like that!