Why The Bid Failed

Thulaganyo Jankey | Tuesday October 17, 2023 06:00

I used to work for a publishing company and P60m would be the annual budget for books in the whole country. P60m is the type of budget that gets the citizenry smelling conspiracies and all sorts of shenanigans.

So P60m is a huge deal both in terms of the magnitude and issues surrounding it. Official reasons are by their nature spin to thwart attacks from itchy-fingered columnists who will question everything including the colour of the pants of those that put together the bid book. CAF never gives any reason as far as I know and I must admit I don't know much around regarding these issues.

So we are all left to wonder and speculate why the spectacle is not coming to our shores and perhaps some low-key, feeble rants and protests. We lost to the East African block that included Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.

These three countries decided they were not strong enough to fight us individually so they formed a ‘tag’ team, a threesome if you like. I think CAF in their minds must have decided that in southern Africa, they can only give hosting rights to South Africa.

How could CAF do this to us?

The minister’s confidence bordered on haughtiness as he opened fire from all guns and rifles. Amidst cautionary warnings to bubble-wrap the minister’s mouth, the confidence of the minister rubbed off onto the populace especially those of us who were running on low octane confidence fuel. We were supposed to host. The Gods had decreed it if you carefully analysed the minister’s speeches. So today we try to distill the real, unofficial reasons why we didn't win the bid. CAF accused us of not having stadia albeit tongue-in-cheek. What does that even mean? As far as I know we have several - National, Lobatse, Masunga, Molepolole, Serowe, Maun, Jwaneng and Itekeng.

I know most will shoot darts at my patriotic balloon because Serowe is built on a pit and in Jwaneng you might be forced to watch the match standing on a tin of paint or crate of beers if the stadium is packed.

National Stadium is our pride and we have over the years improved it bit by bit. It was closed for quite a bit to ready it for the 2010 World Cup and that culminated in a pink-painted stadium that only got ready for use after the 2014 World Cup. Our campaign was basically anchored on the Bid book, which promised state of the art stadia even in areas where soccer is a rumour. We were confident to the point of cocky but the announcement flushed that out of our system faster than laxa would do to your distressed insides.

CAF must have been flustered when our response to ‘Where are the stadia’ was to show them a book. Seemingly those darned CAF guys don’t seem to care for immaculate bid books - which is a travesty! All the energy that went into putting together the bid book seems to have been in vain. According to the BNSC CEO, ours was the best Bid book. Before you 'yeah right' the CEO’s statement, you must realise it is mighty difficult to get CAF to sanction any tournament here in Southern Africa unless you are South Africa.

We were hoping to explode that myth. But it didn’t happen. We got an explosion of our hopes and wishes for hosting right in our faces. Some say CAF is a scam that is so normalised that we don’t realise it is a scam anymore like many African leaders who are essentially two-legged scams. Obviously this analogy would not be coming from East Africa! I hear we want to bid to host an athletics meet and so another Bid book might be in the offing, complete with a bid committee. And a minister!

(For comments, feedback and insults email inkspills1969@gmail.com) Thulaganyo Jankey is a training consultant who runs his own training consultancy that provides training in BQA- accredited courses. His other services include registering consultancies with BQA and developing training courses. Contact him on 74447920 or email ultimaxtraining@gmail.com.