THE Premier League Management Committee (PLMC) has proposed that winners of the new Vodacom Premier League should pocket M550 000 in prize money, the Lesotho Times has learnt.

The league roars into life this weekend with the defending champions Bantu setting the ball rolling against Kick4Life at Setsoto Stadium.

Vodacom was announced as the new league sponsors this week taking over from Econet Telecom Lesotho who were sponsoring the league for the past three years.

The new sponsors will be injecting a whooping M8.5 million over three years. The Premier League Management Committee (PLMC) will get M2.5 million in the first year, M2.8 million in the second year and M3.2 million in the third season.

PLMC spokesperson Qamako Mahao confirmed that Vodacom was the new main sponsor of the league. He however could not be drawn into revealing the prize money.

"Vodacom are the new league sponsors for the next three seasons and will be sponsoring us with M8.5 million," Mahao said.

"The league season is starting this weekend. The money will be divided into three seasons...

"I am however, in no position to confirm the prize monies for now because we are yet to finalise the discussions. The official announcement on that will be made in a due course and it will be followed by the sponsorship launch."

He said the sponsorship amounts are different for each year to factor in inflation.

He said they are relooking the prizes structure.

"In our general conference on the two months back it was resolved that the PLMC revisits the prizes as there seemed to be a huge gap between the league winners and the rest of the other teams.

"One of our mandates is to increase the standard of our football and to do that, must put all our teams at a level where they can really compete with others," Mahao said.

Copyright Lesotho Times. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com)., source News Service English