Metropolitan injects P152k into Chess championships
Phatsimo Kapeng | Tuesday April 12, 2022 16:00
The sponsorship was handed over to the Federation on Friday in Gaborone. After facing a very difficult and rough year full of challenges due to COVID-19, the tournament will now mark its return.
The funds are set to go towards administration of the league as well as prizes for players.The prizes for this edition have been increased with the open section attracting P11 000 while the women's section champion walks away with P9000. In previous time, champions walked away with P10,000 and P8,000 respectively. Metropolitan Botswana comes a long way in supporting the tournament as it used to pop out P120 000 every year until 2020 when the sponsorship was slashed to P90 000 owing to the COVID-19 scourge.
Metropolitan Botswana acting chief executive officer, Thebe Modikwa said Botswana Chess Federation has shown a lot of innovation during the difficult COVID-19 period as they were able to organise and schedule chess games to be played online and always succeeded. “Chess other than most of the sports codes during the middle of the pandemic, they found a way of operating under the scourge. When they brought the sponsorship proposal , they were quite patient and demonstrated a lot of team work. Diversity, accountability and integrity shown by BCF happen to be values of Metropolitan so don’t be shocked that we are here working together because we are aligned,” said Modikwa at the sponsorship unveiling.
When giving his remarks BCF president, Mooketsi Segaise said he is very much happy to see their long term friendship still in existence and even going for greater heights. “Botswana Chess Federation and Metropolitan’s partnership dates back to 2005 and it has grown in leaps and bounds over the years. We are very much happy to see this marriage between us and metropolitan growing higher and higher everyday, it gives us motivation to keep growing and hope for the best,” he said. Metropolitan Chess championships commenced this past weekend in Gaborone and featured players from across the country who will square off in the first round qualifiers while Second round qualifiers will be staged from the 15th to 17th of April. The finale is scheduled for the 29th of April until the 2nd of May where CM Thuso Mosutha and WFM Besa Masaiti will be out to defend their titles.