11 Aug 2015

Some sports teams in the Jwaneng/Mabutsane constituency are said to be going against the set rules and regulations that guide the constituency tournaments.

Speaking in an interview on the side-lines of the elimination games over the weekend (August 8-9), the chairperson of the Jwaneng/Mabutsane constituency tournaments Onthusitse Moinisi said he was concerned about teams that were ignorant of the rules.

He said they were experiencing situations whereby some teams were using defaulters even though it was against the rules.

“Currently we have a pending case of a Kokong team which used a player from a suspended team. The case is yet to come for hearing,” he explained.

He further noted that some teams were still in the habit of including students in their teams even though it was against the regulations. He said in such cases, they collaborated with the ministry of education to establish if indeed the player is a student, after which appropriate action is taken.

He said if found to be using a student as a player, a team is disqualified from the tournament for the whole season. However, he noted that if investigations reveal that the team was misled, they only deduct points since it is still against the rules.

Moinisi noted that most of these anomalies arose because of biased decision making at ward level. He noted that most of the committee members at ward level were directly involved in the teams and therefore there was conflict of interest.

“For example they officiate during their own team games and this result in conflict of interest which can then influence their decisions,” he said.

He said they currently had a case in Khakhea where one team was denied to participate in the tournament, but it later emerged that there was not enough evidence against their case hence it was resolved that the game be replayed.

He said the same thing applied again recently in Samane after a team lost points but since there was not enough evidence to inform such a punishment, a replay was ordered.

Nonetheless, he noted that not all was lost as they were striving to sensitize their committee members about proper procedures as well as implementing them to reduce such cases.

He said apart from orientation workshops, they always advised committee members to absolve themselves from participating teams.

He also said they had partnered with the police to help restore order during the games because some spectators had a tendency of misbehaving during games. He said since the government’s intention was to keep young people busy and away from the streets, as officials they also had the mandate to protect the image of the tournaments by not letting alcohol disrupt the peace.

He said apart from these challenges, the tournaments were progressing well and fulfilling their purpose. He said of the 92 teams in his constituency, only one team from Sese failed to honour two games this season and had to be disqualified as per the regulations.

He also said payments were running smoothly as the teams responded in time for payments to be processed.

Moinisi urged public servants to stop interfering in the tournaments because they were defeating the main purpose of the games. He said there had been reports of public servants who influenced players not to participate in the tournament, saying this was disappointing and had the potential to thwart government’s efforts to keep young people from the streets

Jwaneng/Mabutsane constituency has a total of 92 teams participating this season, 62 for football, being netball while ladies and men’s volleyball have four and three teams respectively. ENDS