29 Oct 2015

Women’s super league has been without a sponsor since the departure of the then sponsor AT and T Monnakgotla in 2012 .

Subsequently, the league has been struggling to make ends meet. Some clubs cannot even afford to buy a playing kit, hence continuing to use AT and T Monnakgotla branded kits.

Last season, some clubs failed to honour the fixtures due to financial constraints.

And when briefing the media about his first 100 days in office on Tuesday (October 27), Botswana Football Association  (BFA) chief executive officer, Kitso Kemoeng said the association was worried that sponsors seemed to be skewed to men’s football than women and youth.

He said BFA was also under pressure from football governing body, FIFA, to up game in both women and youth football.

The BFA, he said, had already consulted with experts, whom he said hade facilitated partnerships in neighbouring countries to help them with guidelines on how to improve on women and youth football.

About improved rating of the senior national team, Zebras, Kemoeng said when he presented the ranking in his inaugural media briefing, he made it clear that the process was going to take meaningful and well-resourced programmes to generate a future generation of star players, who would catapult the standards of national teams.

“I am not about to claim credit for the recent resurgence of the Zebras, for in my view they are simply on the path that I found them on, those of us who watched us lose to Lesotho in the CHAN eliminator would confirm that the team played convincing football for the first time in a long time since Peter Butler took over” he said. 

He said despite the good display, there was still a long way to go and his challenge was to continue to render the support to the team at all levels and to intensify his pursuit of development to make sure there was a reservoir of players for the Zebras.

Quizzed if the Zebras would continue to play in Francistown, he said the country’s second city was for now great for the team, given that even the whole team believed it was a better place for them.

“I hope I am not quoting Peter Butler out of context, he said in Gaborone you will get about 4 000 people jeering at the national team, in Francistown around 25 000 people cheer their national team” said Kemoeng.

Talking about development initiatives, Kemoeng admitted that he had not done as much as he had envisaged, because he spent most of his time in role clarity matters that were still to be resolved.

He said the temporary loss of senior members in the technical department who went on special leave, before the role clarity issues could be addressed made the situation a lesser priority.

Kemoeng, however, said he remained hopeful the matter would soon be resolved to enable all those concerned to firm their focus on development. Ends