26 Oct 2020

Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Culture Development, Tumiso Rakgare has called for commercialisation of sport.

Speaking at the handing over of  the refurbished Centre for Sports Excellence volleyball courts in Francistown over the weekend, Rakgare underscored the importance of sports saying ‘it should be business’. 

Over P197 000 was spent to give the facility a new face.

He said it was now a common cause that sports was not a pastime that it was perceived to be in the past, but real business and a vocation from which people could earn a living.

As such, he appealed to Batswana to support sporting industry to create employment for themselves and others, adding that government was working hard to create a conducive environment for sports and enhance its development.

The minister explained that in developed countries, sports legends and celebrities were mostly associated with certain corporate sport brands to market them and being paid a lot of money by companies in return.

He cited the likes of Amantle Montsho, Isaac Makwala and others for their excellent performance in sports, which had changed their lives.

Rakgare commended Mater Spei College for producing professional sports people such as Women Fide Master, Besa Masaite, who recently received an elite scholarship to study Bachelors of Science (Economics) at Texas University, USA.

Masaite is also reigning junior sports women of the year champion, an award she won whilst a student at Mater Spei College.

On other issues, Rakgare challenged Botswana National Sports Commission (BNSC) to deliver its mandate of developing and nurturing talent so as to bring desired results in future.

Meanwhile, BNSC deputy vice chairperson, Tebogo Lebotse-Sebego said Botswana had produced athletes of repute in volleyball, softball and athletics.

“In the past year, we have seen Zanele Mlongwa from Masunga Senior Secondary School and Molebiemang Abeter from Good Hope Secondary School representing Botswana at the under 19 women’s world cup 2019 in Canada, while Bernard Olesitse also from Good Hope, won gold in 400m at the 2019 Botswana Games and qualified for the 2020 IAAF junior athletics championships,” she said.

Lebotse-Sebego further said six players from Artesia and Radisele centres of sport excellence were part of the under 17 women national team, playing in the 2020 FIFA under 17 world cup qualifiers, whilst five boys from Mogoditshane Senior Secondary School made it to the under 20 national squad for 2019 under 20 COSAFA cup.

“These are by no means small achievements, as it is indeed proving that centres are producing the desired results,” she said, adding that had it not been for disruption of sport programmes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ‘we could be talking of more achievements in the centres’.

Lebotse-Sebego said centres were launched in 2011 to integrate sport into education and support services towards a holistic development of athletics in pursuit of sport excellence.

The other objective, she explained, was for BNSC to increase society’s pool and supply of educated, talented and dedicated athletes, capable of superior and sustained performance at all levels of sports competition.

Mater Spei School Head, Jabulani Munyere said the school believed in ‘mining’ skills from students, which was one of the reasons the school continued to excel.

Botswana Volleyball Federation vice president, Odisitse Keotsene thanked government for supporting sports.

He explained that the federation was in the process of identifying another Centre for Sports Excellence in the north west region, as a way of bringing volleyball closer to the region and nurture talent. ENDS