SEDIBENG.- For example, some of the same municipality facilities are maintained by individuals who are those who care about the development of sport in this region. These are the people who don’t wait for the government or the municipality to do things for them but take the initiative to maintain the sporting facilities in their respective areas. Yours truly TOUCHLINE is one of those individuals who takes an initiative and ownership of the community sporting facilities.
Over the weekend the Emfuleni Local Football Association (ELFA) complained about the Shakespeare Stadium not being maintained but forgot that all municipality sporting fields are not maintained. If municipality sports fields were maintained they could have taken their junior league games to the Saul Tsotetsi Sports Complex in Sebokeng. The truth is that, they could have booked the Saul Tsotetsi Sports Complex instead of taking their matches to Vanderbijlpark.
They are nothing but arm chair critics because they think that they are entitled to everything just because they are the football custodian in the Emfuleni area. They must ask some of us how we survive with this situation of our sporting fields not being maintained. They must stop this mentality of shooting from the hips like brainless “bull dogs” with no sense of purpose. TOUCHLINE pleads with all the sports federation in Emfuleni to stop this tendency of relying on municipality to maintain facilities. As sports, people we must take the initiative to look after our facilities because it doesn’t affect those in the office, but the development our sport in Emfuleni.
This comrade mentality won’t help us to get the bottom of the problem why our facilities are not maintained in this region. In other areas, junior leagues play at the top-class facilities, unlike back here home. To make it worse, the same ELFA juniors play at the hard soccer ground and they have the nerve complain about the grass that was not cut.
How so?
This is the problem with the people who live in the glass houses is that they are quick to throw stones. TOUCHLINE calls them ‘armchair critics’ but the only thing that they know they know is to complain without action. TOUCHINE is not subscribed to the entitlement mentality like some of football administrator who know nothing about the field’s maintenance. TOUCHLINE challenges the ELFA to start engaging the municipality on how best they can help to improve our football facilities in Emfuleni.
The teams pay for affiliation fees, so why can’t they take half of the money and pay the municipality to maintain the fields for them throughout the season? This is the problem when our football is run by people who are affiliated to political parties. They tend to forget their responsibilities as football administrators.
