Espoirs Football Club has initiated the force majeure clause in the players’ contracts and temporally laid them off due to the impact of the coronavirus crisis
With the sporting world currently on shutdown and players in confinement., teams have started to temporarily suspend their staff until the situation gets back to normal.
‘We temporarily laid off our players as all football activities were suspended in our country and almost all over the world to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and we don’t know how long it will last.We did not want to wait and put ourselves in difficult financial situation,” said Kamuzinzi Godefroid,the president of Espoir FC.
“We let our players know that they will resume work as long as this pandemic is over and asked them to try to maintain their fitness.”
Espoir‘s move to lay off players comes a few days after Musanze FC, another club playing in the Rwandan top-tier division told their players that their contracts have been terminated.
It has been a month since all sports activities in the country were put on shutdown to stem the spread of the coronavirus including the national football league which was suspended indefinitely with a maximum six games left to play.
The Rwandan national football federation (Ferwafa) still hopes to resume the league at some point after the lockdown, in which case, the football season which usually ends in July season, could expand beyond the summer.
This could also affect struggling clubs as most players’ contracts could expire before the end of the season.
In the meantime, clubs are struggling to pay their staff with many of them discussing scenarios to withhold pay or lay off their staff as they wait for football’s fate amid the coronavirus outbreak
