Botswana: The Botswana Ministry of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture gave important information about the Botswana Football Association on Wednesday. They shared the information on their official social media account.
In the information, they shared some of the activities that the Botswana Government are doing for the welfare of the Botswana Football Association (BFA) and their structure, Botswana Football League (BFL), on the ongoing legitimacy claims and counter-claims regarding certain BFL leadership decisions and activities.
To gather more information to be better informed in terms of what guidance and direction could be rendered to the parties, the Minister of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture, Tumiso Rakgare, over the weekend, directed the Botswana National Sports Commission (BNSC), to invite the BFA National Executive Committee (NEC) and, through them, the BFL, to a joint meeting for him to appreciate the current developments better, especially given the fact the developments have the potential to disrupt national football activities. The Minister also wanted to enjoy what mechanisms were in place to bring things to normalcy urgently.
Unfortunately, the BFA declared themselves unavailable, citing, among others, some sections of the FIFA Statutes that they interpreted to be proscribing any interactions that could be viewed somewhat as external interference. They also expressed the view that there exist internal structures for resolving grievances and disputes arising within football as an organised and regulated sporting activity under the purview of FIFA.
In this regard, BFA stressed its great confidence in the capacity of such structures and processes to settle the current controversy in the best interests of all parties affected.
Therefore, the BFA Executive Committee’s response urged for the exercise of trust and patience in the capacity of the due process of the internal dispute resolution mechanisms to bear fruit.
While it was never the intention of the Minister to interfere in football activities, the Government has fiduciary responsibilities (to be exercised by a respective Minister, in this case, the Minister of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture) to see to it that where Government resources are injected, they are fully accounted for through proper corporate governance practices and that such resources benefit Batswana.
For now, the Ministry would not want to believe that any of the structures that are beneficiaries of the “social contract” between the Government and the citizens only want to account when it suits them. The sovereignty and obligations of the State should not be trifled with.
Had the meeting succeeded, the Government would probably have been brought to speed on several important matters that could guide the Minister as a principal agent of the State to give more informed advice.
The government, through the Ministry of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture, will, in the next few days, summon the BNSC to discuss a way forward in dealing with a matter where an affiliate of theirs funded by the Government chooses how they should relate with the same Government.