Hate, egos hold football hostage

Mqondisi Dube | Monday November 20, 2023 16:18

The plotters of the coup argue, they want to rescue a game that has been held captive by the current administration domiciled at the Botswana Football League (BFL). The push is gaining ground, but the leadership has been holding firm as it fights back to prevent football's night of the long knives.

The situation has reduced football to a hapless hostage. At the centre of the unfolding situation is hate and personal egos more than a genuine effort to drive the game forward. While the push to remove the BFL chairperson, Nicholas Zakhem and Jagdish Shah is partly premised on a decision to reduce Premier League clubs from 16 to 12, the plot is much bigger. It could be a prelude of much bigger and uglier fights that lie ahead. The Botswana Football Association (BFA) elections loom in the horizon, which has upped the stakes.

The BFA is expected to go for its elective congress towards the end of 2024 and this has added extra fuel to the fights at the Lekidi Centre. The recent fall-out between Township Rollers and former investor, Shah is also part of the jigsaw puzzle. The purported sour relations between the government (read sports ministry) and the BFA is also another flash-point. Local football has become a convergence of hate and the furthering personal interests, in the process alienating the product that matters; football.

What makes matters worse is that the fight is not concentrated in one base, that is the BFL, but has spread to all parts like the Hamas/Israel war. On paper, it’s Israel versus the Hamas but conversely it’s a geopolitical conflict pitting the world’s powers against each other.

Similarly, on the surface it might appear like a battle to remove Shah and Zakhem, but there are underlying issues that have dragged a host of powerful names in the game; from the top to the bottom. The situation will get ugly with each camp unprepared to blink and even adopting the scorched earth policy. The round table is there but at this stage, dialogue does not seem a palatable option to the warring factions. It is already a bare-knuckled fight that will go long into the night. But it is the grass that is suffering across all the football fields in Botswana as the elephants engage in the ugly spates.