BFL to crack whip on 'unprofessional' clubs
Kabelo Boranabi | Monday March 27, 2023 16:00
Speaking at the BFL club engagement session held in Gaborone on Saturday, chief executive officer, Senzo Mbatha said it is the tiniest of the things to have a professional league.
The session was to provide club members a platform to engage and share ideas to make inroads in building a professional league. The BFL invited the 16 elite league teams as Mbatha faced the member clubs for the first time since his appointment. Mbatha also said the BFL will introduce a Football Manual, documentation that outlines how to prepare and manage a match. He said clubs that fail to comply with the manual will be fined and the fine will be deducted from the league grant.
He said clubs will be fined for among other things, failure to appear at a match on time, clash of kits, use of substances (muti) in dressing rooms, failure to provide well written match sheets and failure to avail coaches for pre and post match interviews. “You may find a badly written match report, coaches failing to give match interviews and that is not professional.
I have seen the reports and the question is why are you doing that? We say we want to be professional but we cannot do the basic professional things. Some of the issues will not go to the DC (Disciplinary Committee). I will just deduct from your league grant,” he said. Mbatha also warned that clubs will be expelled from the league for failure to comply with the Club Licensing requirements. Non compliance has been a resurfacing issue in the local football league as clubs still struggle to meet the required standards.
“If you continue not complying you would be expelled from the league, I promise you. CAF has realised that member associations are giving out licenses without complying. Now FIFA upon receiving complaints, for instance, failure to pay players' salaries, they would investigate that we have cases but while the league is already up and running.
They will ask for documentation. If they find out any wrong they will ban BFA (Botswana Football Association). You may take it for granted but it has dire consequences,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mbatha outlined to the clubs the BFL strategic pillars to be used in a bid to become a world class sustainable league. Amongst the pillars are governance and operations, commercial development, league development, club development and marketing and communication. The session was attended by general managers and marketing and communication personnel from the elite clubs.