29 Nov 2021

Jwaneng Galaxy have flight an advert inviting women between the ages of 16 and 30 to register with the club.

However, the team’s mouthpiece, Tankiso Morake indicated that the move was not triggered by the recent CAF directive to the effect that clubs without women teams will be barred from taking part in CAF competitions as of next season.

“Remember that Galaxy FC was formed in 2014 and in our first five-year strategy, the priority was to be promoted to the elite league and dominate it. Now in our second five-year strategy from 2019 to 2024, one of the priorities was to have a ladies team, but unfortunately because of the COVID -9 pandemic, most activities in the strategy were halte. Now that the pandemic is better, we took the opportunity to resuscitate such activities,” he said.

Morake said the issue by CAF requiring teams to have women teams was not a new thing.

In fact, he said, the advert to invite women to register could have been placed a week before the CAF document were it not for newspaper delays.

“The decision to have a ladies team is a major decision that you do not just make in a reflex. You have to look at major things like the availability of infrastructure, strategy, budget and others. So we could not have possibly taken the decision just days after the CAF document was released. It’s just a coincidence that our advert came immediately after the CAF directive,” he said.

Morake said they had been consulting on the move since August, adding that they had a committee in place with various experts to help establish the team.

He said registration at their sports shop was ongoing, from which they would invite all those that showed interest and engage them on what was expected, before officially registering.

On whether they would not struggle to raise a team looking at the location of the area, Morake said because their intention was to mostly develop in the initial years so they would be targeting the technical college, junior schools as well as the out of school youth.

“The aim is not to compete in the first two or three years, so we will be taking it slowly,” he said.

Concerning infrastructure, budget and others, Morake said they had a training ground available and they were still looking for a dedicated sponsor.

The CAF reminder was to the effect that clubs that did not have female sides will not be allowed to take part in next season’s CAF Champions League and Confederations Cup.

Current, only five clubs had female sides; BDF XI, Security Systems, Township Rollers, Prisons XI and Gaborone United. Ends