21 Oct 2020

Maclean Letshwiti returns to Botswana Football Association’s (BFA) top seat with a lot on his plate.

The football fraternity expects him and his executive committee to take Botswana football to greater heights, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

Letshwiti said he was cognisant of the fact that, having been given a second bite at the cherry, he needed to deliver.

When campaigning in 2016, he had promised to, amongst other things, create 5 000 jobs and work on proper development structures.

However, he said in an interview that he was happy that  they managed to make strides especially off the pitch, where there was a lot of work to do.

“… For instance, it took us almost a year to improve the BFA governance structure. After that, we looked at the finances and we spent about two and half years  trying to get the association to a solvent position,” he said.

Furthermore, Letshwiti admitted that during his first term, he had not done enough because he was still cleaning the office, which he said was a process that took longer than he thought

 “But this time, we are just going to try to implement our plans and hope that we can do better,” he added.

He reiterated the need to concentrate on the pitch and start having results with the national teams and premier league.

He said they would also intensify the youth development policy in order to produce quality players.

The BFA head honcho said the Premier League also had to change, adding that there were 16 non-professional teams, adding that since they were now in the journey to professionalise the league, it would be interesting and consequently attract more spectators to the grounds.

Letshwiti said in his new term, he would bring football people closer to him to help him fully develop the game.

He said it was painful that people who were passionate and could develop the game were sitting at home, adding that those were the people ‘that we have to reach out to’. 

He admitted that the BFA secretariat area was the weakest link and something needed to be done as a matter of urgency to improve efficiency.

“But we are working with UEFA and we are looking at the BFA structures. We are going to do a skills audit and try to plug areas that we believe urgently need to be plugged,” he said.

Sunday Standard sport editor, Botlhale Koothopile, said Letshwiti had been in office more than anyone in recent years and thus needed no grace period. 

He said the president did not need the first 100 days, adding their manifesto was clear that they were for continuity.

According to Koothopile, one of the things that stood out in Letshwiti’s campaign was that he spent most of the first four years of his first reign bringing stability to the BFA.

He said Letshwiti was on record admitting that he had achieved that and now they were ready to hit the ground running. 

“We expect that very soon, he should tell us which route the BFA will be taking on grassroots football development and youth leagues. We expect that they will immediately go about showing us what they have planned for women football,” he said.

He said it would be vital for the BFA to now implement the women’s football strategy.

“We understand that prior to the elections, the BFA had received grants from FIFA. So, we expect not to hear the 'we have no money theories.' We expect the Letshwiti-led BFA to get to work immediately and deliver on their promises to local football,” Koothopile said. ends