Lesotho
rugby heavyweights and defending league champions Giants have pulled out of the
Lesotho Rugby League with immediate effect citing gross maladministration and
bad standard of refereeing.
Giants
released a press statement announcing their decision on Wednesday.
“Giants
Rugby club is extremely disappointed in the manner state of the rugby affairs
are continuously mismanaged and gross maladministration is at play (sic),” read
the press statement.
“Giants
players and management make this decision with a heavy heart where to date an
Annual General Meeting (AGM) has never sat to evaluate the performance of the
current crop of self-appointed administrators who deploy bullying tactics
within administration,” the statement continued.
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| Happier times... Maseru Giants lift 2015 Lesotho Rugby League trophy |
The
statement added that Giants players were unfairly treated on several occasions
and a player was suspended on a match day for five games.
“Giants
players were unfairly treated on matters of alleged “disciplinary hearings”
where a player was suspended on match day for five games for a transgression
that he never received a proper hearing for. The refereeing has been
substandard to say the very least in all our matches and the Secretary General /
Public Relations Officer/ “face of Lesotho Rugby” (all in one) deliberately
refereed a match with no relevant or prior experience of refereeing in order to
influence and frustrate our players. Giants were also disappointed at the way
the FLR management handled our post-match grievances by threatening to suspend
players further,” the Giants statement reads.
It
continues to allege that there is a self-appointed trio within the FLR who are
running the association like it is a personal business.
“There
is a self-appointed trio who run FLR like their own personal business and will
stop at nothing to remain in power. Rugby in Lesotho is in disarray and will
continue doing so if an urgent AGM, financial audit and eventual investigation
is not conducted in the affairs of the people embodied to run the federation,” Giants
said.
Giants will now only compete in the Eastern Free
State Griffons league in South Africa where they finished in fifth position out
of ten teams in 2015. They will have a series of friendly matches against
Ladybrand, Ficksburg and Crusaders Bloemfontein before the Free State league
kicks off on March 22.
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