Tough times hit Lifofane

BUTHA-BUTHE – For the past three seasons, Lifofane have been one of the most impressive teams in the Vodacom Premier League.

Their style of play and the calibre of coaches they have employed have raised the club’s standard of football and showed other so-called teams how to compete.

The Butha-Buthe side was promoted to the elite league in 2019 and their 2019/20 debut campaign was a remarkable success with Lifofane not only finishing sixth in the league, but also winning the inaugural Matekane Group of Companies (MGC) Top 4 tournament in Mantšonyane.

In the following two seasons Lifofane established themselves as a tough fixture on the schedule but despite their recent successes, the past year has been a toil.

The club is now on its knees and was on the brink of being sold at the beginning of this season because the owners could not afford the expenses of a Premier League club.

After an outcry from the Butha-Buthe community, the owner decided to keep the team but they are struggling to keep it afloat. With no sponsors, the expenses of running a football club have become overwhelming on the club’s management.

The club’s general manager, Letšolo Maliehe, spoke to thepost last Saturday and shared the financial struggles the club is facing.

He said Lifofane are still feeling the effects of Covid-19 and that the pandemic has affected top-flight teams more than they are willing to admit.

The problems are evident on the pitch through the performances of the team. After 14 games, Lifofane are 12th on the table and have collected just 11 points.

Currently, they are not on pace to match the 27 and 28 points tally they achieved in the past two seasons.

“The main challenge is money, you cannot run a Premier League team in any way without money,” Maliehe said.

“If you look at the prize money for our league, we spend more than we get. We are here for the love of the game, not because its business or because we are getting something,” he added.

Lifofane play their 15 home matches at Butha-Buthe Pitso Ground while for each game they play outside the district they fork out M3 000 for transport which totals M45 000 for their 15 away games.

This expense does not match the prize money the four bottoms placed teams get which is around M40 000.

The M45 000 also excludes other costs such as food and the money the club spends to transport players to training. Per day, Lifofane spends close to M300 on transport only.

“If you don’t have money and you are running a team it means you don’t have a team that is why we wanted to sell it.

“We truly wanted to sell it because it is not a community team, saw that there is no way this team would survive without money.

“But there were people that were crying, we understood and we are struggling with it again,” Maliehe said.

Maliehe said it is disheartening that the club’s hard work is going by the wayside because of their dire financial straits.

“Given the standard we put this team at before Covid-19 that is why we were ready to let go, you could see our standard was high and we could compete for the league (before Covid-19),” he said.

“We started with no one getting paid, we sat down with the players that if you want to play for Lifofane you have to know we don’t have money, but if you have problems, we will have to come in.

“If your parents are sick, we know you don’t earn money, we will have to help,” Maliehe said.

Maliehe said Lifofane were able to make little money from transfer fees before the pandemic such as the sale of John Mofokeng to Linare, but since then they have not been able to.

Players have been leaving for free to join clubs of their choice.

He said they plan to reinforce the team in January with younger players who can be developed and serve the club better.

“We are on a mission to reinforce our team in January with young players, we don’t want old players, truth be told our football is not going anywhere because we rely on the same players,” Maliehe said.

“We trust bringing our own players; if you look at it, a lot of teams come to us.

“At Linare we have about four players who came from Lifofane, Lioli we have players.”

Tlalane Phahla