09 Oct 2022

Botswana Football League (BFL) intends  to automate club licensing in an effort to commercialise football.

Botswana Football Association president, Maclean Letshwiti, said this at a BFL annual general assembly in Gaborone on Saturday.

He urged football teams to keep up with technology since club licensing would be automated next season.

He said club licensing was core to the commercialisation process and a compliance mechanism by FIFA and CAF to get clubs to conform to proper football standard of corporate governance and quality.

“Club licensing is non-negotiable and recent incidents regarding club failing to meet requirements are of concern, hence the association is deeply worried about the resistance by some of the clubs whose attitude towards professionalising of clubs has basically brought football into disrepute,” Letshwiti said.

Whilst there had been remarkable efforts to comply, Letshwiti said there were pockets of resistance which must be condemned.

He said the professional bodies who adjudicated on the teams’ compliance had demonstrated that they would remain as impartial and neutral as possible, therefore the association would not compromise the standards.

Though he admitted that the first season under the BFL banner went well, Letshwiti indicated that it was equally important for the association to continue measuring the growth of football.

“I personally have confidence that BFL clubs have the wherewithal to achieve the desired goals and should be mindful that the league or BFL can only be as strong as the clubs that make the league itself,” he said.

He stated that it was disappointing that some elite clubs continued to operate amateurishly through publicly sourcing donations from the public, which he said was in conflict with the laws of both the country and the football governing association.

Letshwiti noted that it was only the team’s professional conduct that could bring them the good spoils with both government and the private sector coming into the picture, therefore he urged the teams to take themselves seriously in order to attract government and the business community to join hands.

He said strides in the improvement of football could only be attained by hard work from all the BFL teams including individual clubs that must also through strategic plans have a clear growth path to professionalise.

“The time for free lunches is long over, sponsors will only partner with well structured, controversy-free and well managed football clubs,” he said.

For his part, BFL chairperson, Nicholas Zakhem affirmed that all was in place and the league was poised to be competitive judging by the off season preparations that many teams had gone through.

The league is yet to finalise the official league sponsor issue, adding negotiations with the Department of Broadcasting Services were at an advance stage for a three-year contract sales of broadcasting rights.

He further urged teams to vigorously go all out on sponsorship lobbying campaigns rather than depend on the league grants, which were not enough. BOPA