11 Aug 2020

A bid to have a women’s football chairperson as Botswana Football Association (BFA) national executive commitee member  suffered a setback after a consultative meeting resolved not to endorse the proposal.

The consultative meeting resolved that there was sufficient representation since there was a female additional member, who was always assigned to women football.

Botswana Premier League (BPL) had submitted a motion to be considered in the coming BFA elective assembly, arguing that all structures, except women  football, had representation in the NEC.

BFA chief executive officer, Mfolo Mfolo, said in an interview  that there was nothing stopping BPL from coining the motion and submitting it again for consideration.

However, sponsor of the motion, Notwane chairperson, Tebogo Sebego, said it was too late for them to re-submit the motion.

He said they had requested that the motion be placed before the general assembly, but from the look of things, it would not be included in the general assembly agenda.

International Working Group on Women and Sport (IWG), executive board member, Game Mothibi, said though the motion was a good move, it needed further clarity.

“I hear it is meant to increase numbers of women sitting at NEC level, so what happens when the women football chairperson is a man, because people who run women’s football are mostly men and they could equally contest for the women’s football chairperson position,” she said.

Mothibi said the motion needed to be followed by changing guidelines for women football committee and reserve all key positions for women.

Furthermore, she said it should again be followed by reserving two out of four ordinary member positions for women and do away with a position called female ordinary member.

“No need for gender marking in a committee but make it a constitutional matter that two of the four ordinary positions be reserved for women. Of course, women will still be free to contest for all other positions. That is, if we are serious we want to increase women’s participation in sport,” she said.

The move by the mover of motion, Mothibi said, showed intentions to grow women football and increase women’s representation at NEC level.

“Research has shown that every board needs a minimum of three women in order to be inclusive and for women’s issues to be heard as well as for women’s voice to be heard and for women in the boards to be more functional and add value, without being discriminated against or being reduced to tokens,” she said. ENDS