BFA mulls P15m loan for league start
Mqondisi Dube | Saturday September 18, 2021 06:00
Reports are that the new league season will not kick off until the BFL secures P15 million. There has been little success in the sponsorship hunt, with most corporates reportedly demanding concrete schedules for the return to action.
Football authorities have argued, the constant sports bans due to the COVID-19 restrictions have made it difficult to have definite timelines. “Sponsors want a commitment to schedule,” Solomon Ramochotlhwane, BFL CEO said recently. But BFA president, Maclean Letshwiti this week told Mmegi Sport the BFA was considering a P15m loan to enable the league to take off. “It is now more expensive to play football.
The association is exploring ways of assisting clubs before the season starts or during the season. We want to inject P15m but it’s something that I still have to discuss with the executive committee whether we do it or not. But the facts are that it’s a necessity; we have to assist them from the beginning. However, there has to be order. The environment is so toxic at the moment. It is scary to the investors. The rate of stories [published] in the newspapers, people might think they are hurting Letshwiti but they are hurting football,” he said. On questions over the BFL board’s legitimacy, Letshwiti admitted there could be issues. “This is a process; there could be errors.
It could be any other thing, but if you are principled, when there is an error, you fix it. There are proper channels to deal with issues of the league rather than going to the public. There might be a need to correct, but that doesn’t justify one going to the public to address internal issues. That is what as an association we are not going to allow. There are proper channels to be followed,” Letshwiti said.
This comes amid reports that Letshwiti’s erstwhile ally, Nicholas Zakhem faces possible sanction for his scathing criticism of the football leadership.
Zakhem has emerged as one of Letshwiti’s fiercest critics in recent weeks, marking a sharp downturn in relations, just months after the two worked together during the BFA elections.