11 Jul 2016

Come July 30, Botswana Football Association will have a new president.

The fierce contest would be between the incumbent, Tebogo Sebego, a lawyer by profession, police officer, Solomon Mantswe, and entrepreneur, Maclean Letshwiti.

During the Saturday presidential debate organised by Himac Holdings in collaboration with Sport Writers Association of Botswana (SWABO), the trio fought hard to lure voters.

First on the podium was Letshwiti who said if voted he would bring his good leadership qualities, and deal with football hooliganism and bring back the trust, integrity of the game and make Batswana proud of their product.

Letshwiti further said football was people’s game adding under Tebogo Sebego leadership sponsor’s had left in big numbers and others were threatening to dump football due to poor leadership.

“We had First National Bank sponsoring grass roots, Banc ABC and Orange sponsoring the national team and we have BTCL which is on the verge of leaving,” he said.

However Letshwiti’s claims about sponsorship did not go unchallenged as Sebego who was calm throughout the debate came with guns  blazing to quash them, he said numbers and figures are there for all to see.

Sebego however said, the main problem with the association was due to the constitution as it had many loopholes, he however said, with the new constitution now in place he was confident that, now the image of the association would be back on track.

As per the new constitution, which was yet to be implemented, he said the elected office bearer would not be interfering with the BFA secretariat. 

He said the constitution had also accommodated ethics committee which would be responsible for vetting people before vying for BFA positions.

For his part Solomon Mantswe said if voted he would ensure that Botswana Premier League become autonomous as there are capable leaders there who were in good position to take Botswana football to greater heights. 

He said that as chairman of Police XI he had invested in youth structures at the club, leading to the senior team being able to field as many as seven former development players.

Mantswe added that he had worked on the empowering of police officers involved in the sport to gain a C licence coaching qualification.  ENDS