29 Jan 2018

Local football was plunged into a crisis over the weekend as match officials who were supposed to officiate the Debswana First Division North games failed to turn up at various grounds over the weekend.

Of the six games that were fixtured to be played only two games went ahead after teams agreed amongst themselves with the assistance of the league to find replacement of referees to officiate.

 The chairperson of the northern league, Mpenzeni Sambandawe explained in an interview that only Francistown City Greens vs Real Movers and Morupule Wanderers vs Mahalapye United Hotspurs game took place. 

He also mentioned that they were empowered by the law in the event that match officials did not show up to discuss with teams on finding someone who could officiate. 

Sambandawe highlighted that Nico United vs BR Highlanders, Maphatshwa vs Motlakase, Green Lovers vs Sowa Flamingoes and Calendar FC vs Great North Tigers games were called off bringing the integrity of the league into disrepute at the beginning of the second round fixtures. 

The chairperson also noted that all stakeholders who were responsible for allocating referees to games were aware of the schedule and had not communicated any concerns to them.  During the week, he explained that they had been in constant contact with a certain Mpofu who was in the Referees Committee and their expectation was for match officials to be available for games. 

However, he asserted that while there  had been no official complaints forwarded to their office, they just picked up unofficial rumours that they could not act on as they had laid down procedures for raising concerns.

“Whenever they have concerns, they should follow the right channels to complain. We hear rumours that referees are being incited to boycott games by some officials in football due to the fact that we told them that we don’t have the budget to pay assesors,” he explained.

 Sambandawe mentioned that immediately when they realised that they would be problems they liaised with the Botswana Football Association chief executive officer and Setete Phuthego who was responsible for referees to make them aware of the situation. 

He also encouraged football officials to follow the right procedures to lodge grievances rather than bring the game into disrepute, noting that this scared potential sponsors away. 

These dramatic boycotts, he highlighted, impacted on football and promised that decisive action would be taken should it be found that someone deliberately caused this embarrassment. 

Consequently, he argued that the boycotts also impacted on team finances and apologised to those who had taken their time to attend the games.

Great North Tigers assistant manager, Andrew Moeti bemoaned the sad state of affairs, noting that his team had wanted to play the fixture and had incurred expenses. 

This situation, he added, created a backlog of games which put teams under immense pressure at the end of the league. 

For his part, Calendar FC director, Buzwani Diboko expressed disappointment in that his team had been preparing for the fixture for the last two weeks only for referees to fail to show up. ENDS