15 Oct 2013

The first division north league will kick off this coming weekend after a delayed start due to a replay between Tonota FC and Kazungula, which was the league decider.

Addressing the teams' representatives on October 12 in Francistown, the acting chairperson for the league, Setlalekgosi Gate explained that after a prolonged delay to the start of league, they had finally ironed out the issues that led to the delay.

He noted the league was dogged by issues that always led to interruptions and presented a bad picture of the league as in most cases the Botswana Football Association (BFA) disciplinary committee (DC) had to come in.

Gate appealed to the teams to do things different this season. “Let us learn from our mistakes and work together to prevent issues that will affect those who want to help us,” he stressed.

Furthermore, he suggested that teams should register their clubs as companies and do away with running the clubs as societies as that delayed the development and transformation of football in the country. He added that as friends of football, they were pushing for commercialisation of football because it would enhance recognition and growth.    

The acting chairperson further noted that in order to prevent situations experienced by premier league teams such as BMC football club, first division and even other lower divisions teams should start now before they could progress further into the elite league to register their clubs as business entities.

He warned teams that hoped to take advantage of his committee’s lenient attitude that things would be different this season.  The committee, he said, would have no mercy on teams that failed to renew their subscriptions or used unregistered player.

To prevent a situation where teams used unregistered players, his committee would intensify inspections before games . At the same time, teams would be asked to have pre match meeting so that issues of kit clashes could be dealt with before kick-off.  “We have asked teams to submit their colours for away and home kits so that no game will be postponed due to clashing of kits,” he said.    

Gate also updated the teams on the distribution of a P50 000 sponsorship . He said P42 250 would go towards teams as a grant and the remaining set aside for referees fees. This would help prevent a situations where teams will refuse to pay referees, which has resulted  in much debt to referees who eventually matches. Ends