By Mark Baber
June 19 – The long-running dispute over Botswana President Ian Khama’s (pictured) constituency football tournaments has reached a new level of seriousness as FIFA insist the issue of bringing the tournaments under the authority of the Botswana Football Association (BFA) must be resolved by September 22 or the BFA faces possible suspension from FIFA.
Following a four-day fact-finding mission in May, by FIFA senior manager in charge of member associations James Johnson and FIFA development officer for Eastern and Southern Africa Ashford Mamelodi, FIFA has concluded the constituency football tournaments, set up by President Khama, are operating parallel to the BFA football pyramid and are in violation of its statutes.
President Khama, who describes himself as a keen football fan, set up the constituency tournaments in July 2008 in an effort to reach more young people in rural areas, particularly the unemployed, and to engage them in healthy activities. The initiative has received commercial sponsorship as well as plaudits for reaching out to areas where the BFA had no infrastructure, whilst being criticised by others as government interference in football.
In May, Mamelodi told media that, from his meetings in the country, it was clear that people felt the constituency tournaments “are playing a pivotal role in promoting football in Botswana.” Mamelodi made his current view clear, telling the BBC: “The Botswana FA needs to accommodate this tournament. There are a lot of positives, but we need to regulate it as normal football.”
BFA president, Tebogo Sebego, briefing the media, said FIFA’s intention is not to stop the constituency tournaments but the BFA and government need to agree a programme to bring them under BFA control.
According to Sebego, “FIFA noted from the various deliberations with stakeholders, that not only are the constituency tournaments operating outside of the control and supervision of BFA, their current organisation is causing severe damage to BFA sanctioned competitions and Botswana football in general.”
In 2009, government minister Bobirwa Shaw Kgathi expressed concern over the relationship between the BFA and the constituency league saying,: “What worries the most is that BFA looks at it as interference. They should embrace and integrate it into their structures because even the way they select the national team has loopholes and one-sided.”
In 2010, as Sports Minister, Kgathi insisted that the BFA was “deliberately misleading FIFA into believing that the government was running a parallel league and thereafter concluding that this is interference with the formal registered clubs within the BFA structures.” Kgathi’s position was that the constituency tournaments were community sport, rather than a parallel league and the BFA did not have the capacity to run them.
With a complex relationship between the BFA and Botswana government and a president keen for football to play an important role in his development agenda, (not least in developing health-awareness in the HIV-ravaged nation), it is to be hoped FIFA’s intervention will help bring all sides together for the development of football in Botswana.
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