MBABANE (19 April 2025): Manzini Wanderers have won a series of court victories up to a Supreme Court decision that should have seen them reinstated in the Eswatini Premier League. But it has not been so. Wanderers, despite their struggle, are destined to sit the 2024/25 League Season out in the cold.
They have missed both the ongoing MTN Premier League tournament and the lucrative Ingwenyama Cup knockout.
They remain on the sidelines until the new League season which kicks off mid-year. Perhaps the only consolation, is that they successfully evaded the relegation that haunted them and will therefore, if all goes well, re-enter the Premier League as one of the giants. To their chagrin, Moneni Pirates who should have been relegated, and and who lost the High Court Appeal to keep Wanderers out, have not only stayed in the Premier League, but demonstrated amazing resilience by rising from the bottom to be a credible title challenger in the top five.
They would have brighter chances though were the log leaders not been Royal Leopards. The police team has the season under arrest in an unbeaten run through 20 games.
In February a star chamber of Justices Stanley Maphalala, Justice Nkululeko Hlophe and Justice Sabelo Matsebula who wrote the consensus judgement found that Pirates had not filed heads of argument in opposing Wanderers’ case, rendering their case abandoned.
Failure of the Moneni Pirates case meant that the PLE appeal to not comply with a ruling of the High Court in September also fell away.
Now that the shoe is in the other foot, it was expected that the wonderful Wanderers would bounce back. But that was not to be. In their wisdom, the Premier League management committee perhaps considering it was too late in the season to introduce Wanderers, kept things the way they were.
A Wanderers rebound so late in the season would have created a nightmare for the soccer fraternity.
The Weslians who were teetering dangerously into relegation clawed their way back into the Premier League by way of protests and the courts. The High Court agreed with Wanderers that Denver Sundowns fielded a defaulter during their MTN Premeir League game. But the decision came so late in the season Moneni Pirates who had benefitted from a Wanderers relegation and retained a place in the League where they had already played five MTN Premier League games had too much to lose. They appealed the Justice Mumcy Dlamini ruling at the Supreme Court.
The League management had little appetite for an early resolution of the case, forcing Wanderers to return to court to seek and secure a second order from Justice Mumcy Dlamini compelling the PLE to fixture them. However, the PLE appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court dismissed Moneni Pirates’ appeal with costs, setting the cat back amongst the pigeons.
The Weslians who have been out in the cold since the end of the 2024 MTN Premier League season, will most probably be returning to the MTN League a year late. When they do, a new can of worms awaits.
Moneni Pirates, having lost at the Supreme Court did not lend in the fix that everyone anticipated. The PLE management committee waved them “Play On”. And they did, not looking back, clinging in in top 5.
Earlier in the year, Wanderers had appealed to be included in the lucrative Ingwenyama Cup. They lost that bid, because they are not in the PLE. Even after their status changed, the door to the Ngwenyama Cup Management remained shut.
Meanwhile, all ears are primed for the most important view of the Confederation of Football Associations (CAF). CAF is always on site at the start of the league to inspect and certify each club’s readiness for the season. They certainly did not certify Wanderers for the 2025 season.
By all estimates, Manzini Wanderers’ accountants must sharpening pencils and calculating the cost of lost opportunity from the trials and tribulations of a loved club. It is anticipated that there might be hell to pay in wasted costs of maintaining a club that has been kept from playing; of accommodation of players; of salaries; of pain in the inability to play in the MTN League and of watching the Ngwenyama Cup from the sidelines.
PLE acting CEO Petros Vilakazi said they are waiting for a briefing by their legal teams before deciding how to implement the decision on the ongoing league.
Jm/today/19.04.2025
