Botswana Football Association (BFA) president Maclean Letshwiti has read the Botswana Football League (BFL) board the riot act. ‘Transform or the BFA takes over,’ he warned.
Officially opening the inaugural BFL Annual General Meeting at Tlotlo Conference Centre, the BFA president informed clubs their failure to transform and commercialise will bring undesirable consequences.
“Failure to achieve professional football and commercialisation will not be accepted under my leadership. Remember at all times that if you fail to manage yourself, and the league, we would be forced to do the undesirable, which is to take over the league and manage it as the BFA.”
“If you cannot transform yourselves, you are actually forcing the mother body to come in and transform you,” Letshwiti cautioned.
The BFA president informed the BFL shareholders that they are entirely to blame for the league’s failure to get sponsors. He said as the BFA, they can only regulate football and make it conducive for them to play but ‘cannot do all the work for them.’
He said he is yet to hear from the BFL why it has not concluded the league sponsorship deal with Kgalagadi Breweries Limited (KBL). The latter were expected to come on board to sponsor the league.
“We had concluded with KBL that yes, they will sponsor the league but there was an issue that we had to resolve between the Ministry of Finance, KBL and ourselves. I do not know whether that has been done. And I do not know whether your league has attracted what we had agreed on, which is P12 to P20 million.”
“This is business. If you are a business and you are not generating revenue then you are bankrupt. Then you cannot continue operating as a business. I do not know whether that is the problem of the chairman, or the problem of the board or your office.”
An irate BFA president informed the BFL board and shareholders that as a business, the league had to generate money and be sustainable. He said failure to do this is an invitation to the mother body to intervene.
Meanwhile, the BFA president castigated the BFL teams for tarnishing the name of the association through their actions. He said their tendency to run to the media whenever they want to express their displeasure at anything soiled the beautiful game. He then laid into the BFL chairman Nicolas Zakhem, informing him to take action against clubs dragging football into disrepute. He said if the chairman does not take action, he will have to face the wrath of the association.
