14 Jul 2015

Childline Botswana in collaboration with other organisations has launched an initiative to raise money for Botswana football legends which will start with a legend’s match on August 29 at the National Stadium.

The match will see the Botswana national team founding footballers play a match under the name FC Pitse ya naga.

When launching the initiative, Olebile Machete from Childline Botswana said the concept came up when they realized that Botswana XI founding players had long been forgotten.

“It came to our attention that our founding players, who paved the way for the current crop of players, have been isolated and have not been recognised for the work they have done,” said Machete.

He said their work for charity helped them see the importance of finding a way to give what they can to help the legends’ work to be recognised.

He said some of Batswana, particularly the emerging youth did not know about the kind of players they are talking about.

“For instance, when in our concept initially the only players we could think of as legends were the likes of Tumi Duiker. We were not aware that the actual legends came well before the likes of Duiker,” he said.

Machete said their task was to make sure that people appreciated what the founding players have done to the country as far as football is concerned.

He said it was not just about bringing back the good old memories but they were also concerned about the welfare of such players.

The founding players plied their days during the formation of the national team and, by then the national team was recognised as Botswana XI as far back as 1966.

The organizer said the theme of their initiative was ‘Isolution’, adding that in some countries like South Africa, they appreciated what their legends have done to football including Irvin Khoza, Jomo Sono and Kaizer Motaung.

He said such legends defined South African football; therefore there was a need to do the same here in Botswana.

“The idea is to bring our legends closer to the community and in the process make funds for them.” he said, adding that the initiative would run for 3 years on an annual basis with legends reaping the benefits according to their needs.

He further expressed his concern with the diminishing history of football in Botswana saying if the legends were not properly documented the next generation would never know about their existence.

Phillip Mauco, the first goalkeeper to play for Botswana national team, applauded the initiative, stating that it showed that someone was doing something out there for them.

“Our generation played football for passion, we were the first players to represent the country on the football scenario but our input has since never been recognized,” said Mauco.

He said during their time, life was not easy for a footballer since they were not paid as it is with the current players; just appearing with national team colours meant a lot more to them than money.

He said his hope was that one day Botswana Football Association (BFA) would wake up and appreciate their input in football. “When playing for a national team, we used to play in front of a packed national stadium in every match, whether we lost or won our supporters made sure they came to the stadium,” he said.

He said his wish was for BFA to come forth and engage them and in a way find the means of changing the current scenario. He said legends had that niche in supporters to be interested in football. Ends