11 Jun 2020

Women football teams will each be given P2 000 while foreign coaches will receive P2 500.

According to a press release from Botswana Football Association, the committee working on the COVID-19 relief has agreed on the initiation advances to clubs while waiting for the actual figures from FIFA.

This therefore means each player from women football clubs, would get P80, an amount which some football pundits view it as insufficient; given that they were also affected by COVID-19 pandemic.

However, BFA women representative, Tsoseletso Magang said as the association,they did not know how much they would get from FIFA, and as a result, they decided to give players some money from their own coffers  with the hope that it would be replaced by the relief from FIFA.

“As you know, this was not budgeted for. If the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development cannot help all of us, what about us as BFA?

We can only do so much. The advocacy continues because I am always reminding National Executive Committee that women were mostly hard hit because teams are taken care of by coaches and individual owners who also suffered a setback during COVID-19,” she said.

Sunday Standard sport Journalist Botlhale Koothopile said women teams needed more help than men teams looking at all the costs incurred by teams monthly. P2 000 was very low.

To say this is a disappointment would be a gross understatement. While we have to understand that women football is not considered a source of income, one can however not ignore the fact that it is run from individual owners and administrators pockets. They pay for the upkeep of their players. They help pay for their players’ basic necessities,” he said.

He said women football was taken care by businessmen and workers who were affected by the COVID-19 lockdown, therefore looking at the burden, the owners and administrators carry and the money they spend on developing the women football, one would have expected something better.

“One thing to note is that, this money is definitely not intended for players.

What they are intended for is anyone’s guess. Simply put, women footballers are not part of the COVID 19 relief funds,” he said.
International Working Group (IWG) on Women and Sport, executive board member, Game Mothibi said P2 000 per team was way too little when compared to what government promised each male player.

“I am not sure what the team is expected to do with P2 000, to divide among players or to use it as a team to support the ladies. But, still I find it too little.

BFA COVID-19 outbreak committee decided to lump the money to be given to women’s football to go to teams and then outlined how each person, referees and foreign players would take. I don’t understand if this alone was not good enough for them to realise that there is disparity there.

I wish I had more information on this because it doesn’t make sense to me at all,” she said.

Mothibi said that alone goes to show that there was still a long way to go in BFA and other national sporting associations in taking women’s sport seriously.

“But I would still go back to the discussion that was there, when the ministry announced how they will support sport people during COVID-19, the omission which was done there, by the parent ministry, continue to create these inequalities,” she said.

She said ministry should have led by example and be firm on how national sporting associations should be included.

Furthermore, Mothibi said the ministry should have included women who play football in their COVID-19 relief plan.

“If they were open to consider non-registered academies, and if they were covering all musicians affiliated to COSBOTS, why wouldn’t they cater for women in football and all the sport codes the same way?” she asked rhetorically. Ends