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THE Premier Soccer League are said to be splashing $8 000 a month in rentals for two properties, one in Eastlea, Harare, and the other in Bulawayo, in expenditure which has raised eyebrows amid concerns the amount is hugely inflated.
The PSL head office is in Harare’s Eastlea neighbourhood at 36 Midlothian Avenue while the league’s Bulawayo office is located in Suite 214 Century House between 10th Avenue and Jason Moyo Avenue in the City of Kings.
Century House also houses the main office of Ken Estate Agents, a company run by the PSL chief executive, Kenny Ndebele.
It could not be established last night as to how much the PSL are paying for the rentals of those offices in Bulawayo, but sources have revealed that the league pays a fortune to rent the premises in Harare which they have been using as their head office for some time now.
Rentals in Eastlea for a full house, according to market rates, are unlikely to be more than $1 000 a month, but it is believed that the top-flight league has been paying more than five to seven times the average rentals for the use of that property.
Given that the PSL have been using the property for years now, there had been reports that they acquired the house which they converted into their headquarters, but sources have now revealed that the league has been renting the premises at a huge cost.
“The money which the PSL is paying towards rentals every month is massive and not consistent with the market rates,” sources told The Herald.
“When you do the simple calculations, taking into consideration the money which has been lost to the rentals, you can see that, by now, the league could have bought its own property, not one, not two, but more than that.
“The league’s headquarters in Harare has about five people who work there and just about everyone there is a manager of some sort, the only one whose job description doesn’t have manager is probably the personal assistant.
“When the former chairman Twine Phiri left his post about two years ago, the PSL had about $150 000 in their coffers and discussions were held, as he bade his colleagues goodbye, that the league should seriously consider investing in its own property because the rentals were bleeding their coffers.
“However, two years later, nothing has changed and the league continues to pump a lot of money towards the rentals.”
It also emerged that Lifa Ncube, the member of the PSL emergency committee in charge of finance, event went to the extent of sending a memorandum to his colleagues expressing concerns over the amounts which the league’s leaders were handing themselves as allowances.
Ncube, who is the Chicken Inn chairman, was concerned that the huge amounts which were going into allowances could trigger an uproar from the league’s membership and fans who could argue that this was tantamount to fleecing the top-flight league.
Online Reporter