25 Jan 2017

The International Netball Federation (INF) has appointed Botswana’s umpire, Abednico Chetelo for the Netball World Youth Cup (NWYC) which will be held in Gaborone in July.

During the games, Chetelo will be assessed under the International Talent Identified Umpire (ITID) and should he impress the International Umpires’ Award Testing Panel, he will be the first Motswana to become an international umpire.

However, the sharp and blunt umpire is not new to reviews and high profile games  as he was awarded grade A after impressing the panel in  2014 Africa World Cup Qualifiers hosted by Botswana. He was then invited by the netball governing body, INF to officiate at the Sydney 2015 Netball World Cup.

Botswana Netball Association (BONA) president, Tebogo Lebotse-Sebego said in an interview that for Chetelo to be appointed NWYC umpire and be put under ITID was a great achievement, not only for him but for the country as well.

She said as BONA, they had dual responsibility to develop both players and officials being coaches, umpires and match bench officials.

“Developing officials is an area that we have been working very hard on, but progress has been slow because of its pathway, as we were basically starting from scratch. Now it is critical for us since we are seeing progress in developing our umpires,” she said.

 Lebotse-Sebego further said Chetelo’s appointment was also key to players’ development given that if players were not exposed to international umpires, their play would not develop.

She said her association was happy for Chetelo as he was the first Motswana to reach the stage, adding that if he did well, he was likely to become the first international umpire in Botswana.

 “In Africa we have an international umpire only in South Africa. So should he impress the panel, he will be the first international umpire in Africa from outside South Africa,” she said.

She said most of the umpires who would be assessed together with Chetelo were from Singapore because the country had been working aggressively in the development of umpires.

Lebotse-Sebego said she was confident that Chetelo would make the cut, looking at his resilience and commitment. BOPA