10 Mar 2020

Government has cancelled the Botswana Women U-17 national football team’s trip to Morocco due to COVID-19 outbreak.

The team was to face Morocco in a second leg encounter for the

World Cup qualifiers preliminary round on Friday.

In an interview, Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development, Tumiso Rakgare revealed that the team would no longer honour the fixture due to the outbreak.

He said they had observed that the spread of the virus was now rampant and spreading at an alarming rate.

As such, he said government took a deliberate decision not to send the team to Morocco.

“Being aware of reported cases of the COVID-19 in Morocco, Algeria, Egypt and Libya, we would not put the players lives’ at risk.

We took into account the fact that Egypt has already reported one death due to the virus,” he said.

Rakgare said while it was their desire for the local team to go and compete, and possibly reverse the 1-0 score margin, such would not materialise as the circumstances were beyond their control.

While cognisant of possible FIFA sanction for failing to honour the fixture, minister Rakgare said they were ready to explain their decision to FIFA.

“In fact, we have already requested Botswana Football Association to communicate to FIFA and inform them about government’s position to ban travel amongst the public servants and other stakeholders.

The decision does not affect sports only. Even other government officials are not supposed to travel outside the country,” he said.

The minister encouraged the team not to despair adding that the decision was not taken in bad faith, but to protect them.

“Their health comes first and there are other opportunities that will come and  they should continue playing football and know that we value their contribution to the country,” he said.

He said Coronavirus had proved to a deadly disease, adding that due to their age, there was a probability that their immune system was not strong enough to withstand the virus; hence the decision.

Just recently, the World Athletics postponed the World Half Marathon Championship until October due tothe COVID-19 outbreak. ENDS