24 Mar 2013

Botswana Netball Association (BONA) is working on strategies to benefit from netball constituency tournaments.

BONA president, Ms Tebogo Lebotse said during the association’s annual general meeting that netball was included for the first time in 2008 and they had hoped to ride on the initiative to reach neglected areas and increase membership.

She said the tournament was a presidential initiative that needed to be embraced, adding that the initiative had the potential to develop the game of netball countrywide and increasing BONA membership.

However, she said the games were posing challenges as players participating in constituency tournaments were not allowed to play for teams affiliated to BONA hence making it difficult to increase the association’s membership and to develop talented players.

Nonetheless, she said BONA was working on strategies to benefit from these tournaments.

However the BONA development officer, Ms Onkemetse Mpudi said constituency tournaments were there to stay thus BONA had to find a way to embrace it and find ways to amalgamate it into its structures.

She said the tournaments were money driven as players were remunerated after winning games hence it posed a challenge to recruit players from the constituency league into clubs.

In addition she said BONA had to intervene because teams affiliated to BONA were losing players to constituency teams.

Regarding the Northern zone netball committee, Ms Lebotse said there was a problem that needed to be identified and resolved to enable the committee to function.

She said if the zonal committee did not function, then the zonal tournament will be affected.

“This is a bigger challenge that needs a dedicated resolution, we have to stand up because if this issue is left unattended then we are likely to lose teams,” she said.

Ms Lebotse said this after she was informed that the northern zone committee had a problem of attending meetings as members resided in various locations.

She said the team had to ensure that they meet despite the problem of distance between members. ENDS