07 Mar 2023

Botswana Football Association (BFA) president, Maclean Letshwiti, says one of the reasons why football is failing in Botswana is because of lack of stakeholder engagement.

Commissioning the north regional football association’s reset agenda in Francistown recently, Letshwiti said football was a game of stakeholders.

The president said the reset agenda was pinned on four pillars of good governance and administration, league development, club development as well as marketing and sponsorship.

He told delegates from Maun, Chobe, Boteti and Francistown regions that they were the nerve centres of football, therefore the reset agenda was meant to decentralise power from BFA national executive committee to regions.

Letshwiti said the agenda was also aimed at realigning and refocusing football, calling on stakeholders to play their part in football development.

The president further told delegates that those entrusted with the leadership of football should be held accountable.

“They should justify why they were elected into those positions of leadership, otherwise we will have to crack the whip,” said Letshwiti.

He explained that football in Botswana had reached cross roads and should not be ‘business as usual.’

He said the BFA leadership was now challenged to revise its approach towards football in order to change the fortunes of football.

President Letshwiti said BFA created a conducive environment for football to thrive, therefore the reset agenda was meant to trigger the association to spring into action.

He said for progress to be visible, the BFA leadership should vacate its comfort zones, roll up sleeves and get down to work as a team. 

For his part, Francistown mayor, Godisang Radisigo said Botswana could produce the best at all levels of football if all could give the game the seriousness it deserves.

He said football structures had to evolve and have clear constitutions.

They must be given the authority to manage themselves, including creating their disciplinary committees.

Radisigo said coaches must be produced at all levels.

He added that there was need to develop referees so that all the referring needs across the boards were catered for, and at the same time more referees in the likes of Joshua Bondo could be produced.

Radisigo also stated that BFA needed to ensure that grassroots football was availed to children in all the regions.

Regarding club development, Radisego said clubs must be registered according to the law so that BFA should run football professionally.

In their comments, delegates from the three regions welcomed the reset agenda.

However, some were worried about the implementation process of the agenda saying regions were operating at a zero budget.

The meeting also saw regions chairpersons or their representatives signing a performance management plan contract, binding themselves to the implementation of the re-set agenda. Ends