By Harry Awurumibe, Editor, Abuja Bureau
Confederation of African Football (CAF) Head of Safety and Security, Dr. Christian Emeruwa has commended the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) for being the first out of 54 Member Associations to organise CAF Safe Stadium Initiative Workshop.
The workshop is designed for the training of security officers drawn from all premier league clubs, police, security committee of Eswatini FA and the FA Safety and Security Officers.
Speaking at the end of the three-day Workshop held in Mbabane, Emeruwa said Eswatini has taken a bold step by hosting the first CAF Safety and Security Initiative Workshop.
He argued the move showed that the country is very serious about the safety security of her football stakeholders.
According to the CAF Security Czar, the programme is an initiative set up by CAF to support Member Associations on how best to organise Safety and Security operations during football matches in the respective Member Associations.
He therefore heaped praises on the leadership of Eswatini FA especially the Secretary General (Frederick Mngomezulu) and President Peter Simelane for their efforts to ensure that their country hosted this loadable CAF initiative first out of 54 members of the Confederation.
Said he: “We at CAF are very pleased that Eswatini Football Association is the first amongst the 54 members of CAF to off this initiative and to host it.
“We only discussed this less than one month ago, with all Member Associations Presidents and Secretary Generals and we told them that we have few slots for this year, to be able to accommodate 15 countries.
“And we asked every country to tell us when they are going to be able to host. And I must say that the Secretariat of the Football Association of Eswatini has been exceptional”.
Speaking further, Emeruwa who decorated in the Eswatini national attire by EFA President said:”I have not met the Secretary General in person but we held several meetings online and I will say, he comes across as one of the most professional Secretary Generals I have had course to deal with in Africa.
It takes a lot to get people quickly together in this room. And what surprised us the most was that the Football Association went a step ahead to provide kits for you all. We came with T-shirts and they already provided you with tracksuits and all these were done within a month.
“And the logistics and every other thing that went into it were exceptionally delivered , I must say I happy to come personally because I was encouraged and motivated by what I saw and with the pace of work in various email exchanges, the calls, the communications between federation and CAF and how things were going seamlessly and I felt since this is the first programme.
“I needed to be in Eswatini to say thank you to the leadership and also to remind all the pioneers that now you have the knowledge, the skill set, it is now an opportunity for you to go back and not only practice but train the people that you are working with in your respective clubs.
“We believe strongly that Africa can organise football in a friendly, safe and secured environment.
“What was lacking was the know-how but today, in the last three days, you have been told and you have been shown how this can be done.
“So, for this reason as I have mentioned during the course of the lecture that it is not only enough to be a student, what is next is what you do with the knowledge you have acquired .
And we are hoping that in few months from now we will be able to point to Eswatini to say go to Eswatini and see how their league matches are organised. And then you will know the benefits of having a programme like this. READ ALSO:
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So Mr. President, please extend my warmest regards to the President and the leadership, and of course, I will say to all those that have participated today that you have a lot of responsibilities to keep the fire burning, to change the way things are done
and it starts from what you do from the moment you leave this room today until your next match.
So I will want to wish you all the very best and look forward to handing over certificates to those who are successful and also given a shake to those who just came to support us. And so thank you very much Mr. President”.
