Allegations have surfaced that teams that qualified for the Bofinet Softball league top 4 are unhappy with the new system of play that was implemented by the Botswana Softball Association (BSA) Competitions manager Renny Molete. The clubs are said to be questioning the BSA Competitions Manager’s motive in implementing the new system ahead of the 2016 Bofinet Softball League finals. The finals, which are billed for the BSA Diamond Courts in Gaborone, are scheduled to start this coming Friday and will end on Sunday.
According to a source who preferred anonymity, Molete changed the top 4 schedules at the last minute in order to put his teams (Rail Giants) in a favourable position.
“All teams that finished top in their brackets are supposed to be given priority to play first in order to have more time to rest and avoid playing back to back games while awaiting the winner between the runners up. Molete changed all this to his own system that doesn’t even exist within the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) structures. He changed the system at his own accord without engaging the concerned teams,” the source alleged.
The source revealed that as both Wells and BDF IX had finished top in their respective brackets, they were supposed to have their match played first, with Gatalamotho and Rail Giants facing each other later. However, under Molete’s new system, Gatalamotho and Rail Giants will play first on Friday night while Wells and BDF IX will face each other on Saturday. While the winner of the Wells and BDF IX tie will go straight to the finals on Sunday, the loser will however face the winner between Gatalamotho and Rail Giants on the same day to decide the other finalist.
According to the source, the new system is contradictory to the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Page system, which the Botswana Softball Association (BSA) has been using. The source said while the WBSC gives the top teams from their previous brackets precedence and advantage, Molete’s new system gives the runners up advantage which is contrary to the WBSC system.
“In this case, the loser between BDF and Wells is going to play back to back games against the winner between Gatalamotho and Rail Giants despite finishing top in their previous brackets which is totally unfair. Molete doesn’t listen to anyone when we question his decisions, he is the one to be blamed for all this chaos because he does things his way, he is not even responding to our questions,” the source explained.
Panthers and Wells are said to have written a letter of complaint to the National Executive Committee (NEC) and Zonal manager, demanding answers but they have since been ignored by the NEC.
When reached for a comment Molete said nothing has changed except the times and days of play contrary to what teams are complaining about.
“We have been using this system for years now. I didn’t change anything at all, I don’t know what people are complaining about, we used the system even last year. What we did was to squeeze games in 2 days unlike last year which was a three day show,” he said.
He further stated that there is no how he can make changes alone without the NEC concerns, it’s just people who lacks intellectual sight that want to tarnish the good name of Softball.
The Bofinet Softball league is contested for by Wells, BDF IX, Gatalamotho and Rail Giants in the men section while Police IX, Panthers, Dinare and Rail Giants will compete for the ladies title. The winner will walk away with a P100.000 grand prize.
