Premier League season starts on September 14

LEKOPANYE MOOKETSI
Correspondent | Friday August 17, 2012 00:00

Premier League general manager, Phuthego Setete said they have sent the draft fixtures to teams for their input and hope to have them ready by next week. 

Phuthego told Mmegi Sport that they are preparing for the next season. 'We are expecting a few changes which are geared at improving the product,' he said.  This season the new teams to the Premier League are Motlakase, Security Systems and Prisons XI. However, Security Systems' stay in the Premier League is in jeopardy as the club failed to pay a subscription fee.  Security Systems were champions of the Southern Zone First Division. 

Phuthego said the last season was quite a challenge taking into consideration that there were long lay-offs. 'The AFCON finals impacted negatively on our schedule,' he said.  'We also had the Mascom Top 8 tournament which also impacted on our season,' he said.  'All in all I don't think we have done too badly.  We had had a couple of issues that we will improve on,' he said.

Phuthego is optimistic the shortage of venues will diminish during the new season.  'I hope the new Lobatse and Francistown stadiums would be availed during the new season,' he said. The Premier League official said most of the stadia that they were using during the last season did not have lights.  As a result, it became big challenge to play midweek games.  'This is why we had midweek games during the day,' he said. 

Meanwhile, Phuthego said by Wednesday, they had not registered any player transfers ahead of the August 31 deadline.