20 Apr 2016

Botswana Football Association president  Tebogo Sebego has confirmed that his National Executive Committee has endorsed Botswana Premier League board decision to recall former BPL chairperson Walter Kgabung and his vice Solomon Mantswe.

Sebego said the BPL had made some resolution on March 30, and all chairpersons including Kgabung signed for them.

He said the resolution included the recalling of  Kgabung and Mantswe from the positions of chairperson and vice chairperson of the premier league board with immediate effect, to suspend  chief executive officer, Bennett Mamelodi with immediate effect and suspension from duty of the executive secretary to the CEO,  Mogolo Sekgwa with immediate effect and appointment of Business Profilers, a management company, to run the affairs of the Premier League during the suspension of the substantive CEO.

Sebego said the only resolution the NEC did not endorse was of appointing Business Profilers, as the NEC was of the view that it would be a conflict of interest.

Furthermore, he said the reason NEC upheld the resolution was because they were adopted by the required number of members of the board.

“Remember they are the one’s who vote for their own chairperson and if they take a resolution and 75 per cent of the members decide to recall their chairperson, we felt we have to endorse their decision,” he said.

However, addressing a press conference on Tuesday, Kgabung said they were surprised to hear that the BFA  at its meeting of April 6  endorsed most of the decisions of BPL board, whose constitutionality they were  challenging.

He said although they were not privy to the deliberations of the NEC meeting, the decision has frustrated and confused them to the extent that they wonder what really could have motivated such a decision.

Their desire, he said, was not   to question authority, but rather to express their fear that the endorsement of such unlawful decisions, which were a contravention of Article 12.5.3 of the BFA constitution, have the potential not only to injure their reputation as members of the Premier League Board and in their individual and collective capacities, but also bring the game into disrepute.

Kgabung, who was accompanied by Mantswe, said during the board meeting on March 26, part of the agenda was to discuss the issue of financial grants to premier league clubs.

He said the meeting was also to receive feedback on progress on the sourcing of alternative funding from a task force that had been appointed by the board at its meeting of March, 5.

“It had become apparent at that preceding meeting that even though at the material time, the premier league had not overspent its budget, projections indicated that because of failure to realise financial inflows from projected income generating streams, the league would be over the budget by about P6 million at year end,” he said.  
ENDS