10 Oct 2013

Southern District’s senior assistant district officer (SADO) has applauded the youthful Kanye Rising Stars Football Club (KRSFC) for using the constituency tournament as a stepping stone to greater things.

Lebogang Basimanebotlhe commended the team for, inter alia, keeping every record of the money they won in the tournament and how it was expended, something she said set them apart from other constituency based teams in the district.

Basimanebotlhe also commended the team for using the constituency tournament prize money over the years to purchase necessary training equipment such as kits, balls and for use in day to day team activities including transport whenever they had an away game.

Moreover, the team also used the funds to officially register to be part of the Botswana Football Association structures. On the other hand, she expressed displeasure that some teams which had similarly featured and won prizes in the tournament since its inception were yet to acquire a proper kit.

Some of the teams, she said, sometimes even failed to honour games pleading lack of transport money which she said defeated the spirit of the tournament.

She further observed that incidents of misappropriation of team funds by team officials was also on the rise in her area since Botswana National Sports Council(BNYC) decided to have winning teams paid at the post office and not through District Commissioners’ offices across the country.

Under the new arrangement, she said only one signatory was required to collect prize money from the post office on behalf of a team against the initial three. This, she said, encouraged misappropriation of funds.

Basimanebotlhe said most of the signatories disappeared with the money and later on either joined existing teams or formed their own.

Basimanebotlhe also complained that some elderly people had some young people fronting for them to form teams as a ploy to get the prize money for their own personal benefit. Ends