Serufho takes swipe at karate
Calistus Kolantsho | Saturday September 24, 2022 06:00
This follows a shambolic trip by the karate team to the Commonwealth Karate Championships held in Birmingham, the United Kingdom last month. Some of the team members were left stranded in South Africa due to transit visa issues.
Speaking at a press conference this week, Serufho said National Sport Associations (NSA) are allowed to raise funds in an organised manner. He said when fundraising is not done properly, national teams will only be for athletes who have parents who can make contributions.
He said the national team should be on merit and must be funded by an NSA and not by parents. “We do not approve of what we have seen happening recently. Some of our NSAs can be cantankerous.
If you follow the track record of karate when participating in the Commonwealth Karate Championships, you will find that they have never sent the number of athletes they wanted to send to Birmingham,” he said.
He said even when the competition was held in Durban (South Africa), the number was smaller and the question is why did they want to send a large number of athletes to the overseas competition? “Where are the standards? Are we selling national team places? We suspect that this was to embarrass the BNSC, our ministry, and the government. Some of the big countries had sent fewer numbers to the Commonwealth. Maybe it was intentional to embarrass us so that tomorrow we are accused of failing our athletes,” he said. Serufho said if BOKA had selected quality athletes, the circumstances could have been different.
He said team Botswana had 36 athletes from eight sporting codes but karate alone wanted to send 50 athletes. “Are we not intentionally stalking controversy to the detriment of us as sport and creating unnecessary tension in the public?” he wondered. Meanwhile, Serufho said they are worried about indiscipline amongst NSAs.
He said they are cracking the whip and the BNSC disciplinary committee is meeting to discuss cases that have been brought forward. “So far we have presented three cases to the disciplinary committee and we are finalising the fourth one. It should be submitted this week. There are also two more cases that we are investigating. We are not fighting anyone, we just want things to be done properly,” he said.
Serufho said they have realised that things are not being done properly. BNSC legal advisor, Tumisang Hule said they were not in a position to reveal the affected sport associations facing disciplinary action. “I can confirm that we have lodged complaints against three associations but I will not mention them or go into details because for now, it remains complaints. In terms of procedure, once the disciplinary committee has received complaints, they will assess, investigate, and will inform us to formally charge them,” Hule said.
He said after the charges have been laid, the associations will be disclosed and the offences made known.