New cup competition to delight soccer lovers

Seabata Mahao and Lineo Mahlomola

A new football cup competition dubbed The People’s Cup sponsored by Matekane’s Group of Companies (MGC) and Econet Telecom Lesotho (ETL) was announced last week.

The competition is organised by a local company, Molefi Global Agencies, and the Premier League Management Committee (PLMC), while the two sponsors have injected in M600,000 funding shared equally.

The competition will run for three years.

All 16 premier league teams will participate and will be voted for by supporters for a top-four spot to play in the tournament.  The competition will be played on April 22 to 30 this year.

Molefi Lengosane from Molefi Global Agencies said the competition was inspired by the that the PLMC no longer has cup tournaments.

“MGC and ETL will work hand in hand with Molefi Global Agencies to hold a successful tournament,” Lengosane said during the unveiling of the competition this week.

“The sixteen teams from Vodacom premier league will all participate. They will be voted by the supporters for each team to win and voting will be done using ETL mobile numbers where there will be only four on the top four of the votes out of the sixteen that will be given a chance to play at the tournament,”

“It is now in your own hands as teams to make yourselves money by voting for your teams even though it was not easy to make this tournament this successful,” said Lengosane.

The semi-finals will be held at Bocheletsane Stadium in Thaba Tseka on April 22, while the finals will be at Setsoto Stadium in Maseru on April 30.

Voting for clubs started on March 23 and will end on April 15.

Competition winners will get the first prize of M200 000, runners up will receive M100 00, while the third and fourth teams will take home M60 000 and M40 000 respectively.

M200 000 will be used to prepare for the tournament including buying the trophy and medals for the teams.

Additionally, there will be individual awards for players where the player of the tournament will receive M3 500, the best goalkeeper will receive M3 000, the best referee will receive M1500, the best assistant referee M1 000.00, and lastly the best player of all the matches that will receive M1 500.

MGC and ETL are no strangers in Lesotho’s top-flight football as MGC previously bankrolled a cup competition called MGC Cup, while ETL has sponsored the premier league in the past.