Media almost drove Mamelodi to the edge
Mqondisi Dube | Saturday March 2, 2024 06:00
In excerpts contained in his soon-to-be-released memoir, ‘Protecting The Game’ Mamelodi reveals a fractious relationship with the local media as his position as Botswana Football Association (BFA) came under frequent scrutiny.
Mamelodi, who headed the BFA secretariat from 1999-2000, dedicated a chapter in his book titled 'Media Faceoff' to capture his often volatile exchanges with the press.
“To describe my relationship with the media as love-hate would be too kind to my critics – at best – it was purely adversarial with some.
I was always the lion that had indulged its insatiable hunger by feasting on an unsuspecting spectator,” Mamelodi writes.
“They shouted about my perceived maladministration from the rooftops of their respective media houses – none more vociferously other than the infamous Bro Tinto,” Mamelodi says, referring to a popular, hard-hitting sports column at the time. “At the end of this book, the glossary will reveal the other key players from the media space,” he adds. Mamelodi recalls one of three incidents that will forever remain etched in his mind, involving a person he regarded as a good friend and his former coach at Gaborone Senior Secondary School, the late Nicholas ‘Lele’ Sebele. “At the time, Nicholas Sebele was a resident in Jwaneng where Debswana Jwaneng Mine employed him as a youth officer. There was an ongoing investigation into the poor performance of the national teams of Botswana under the late Kgosi Seepapitso and the late Christopher Dambe,” Mamelodi recalls.
He says on the particular day of the incident, the committee was in Jwaneng to solicit views from the public and Sebele was at the meeting. “I was not listening to the radio when the bulletin was aired, but I was informed later that Lele had a field day at the commission’s hearing. He said that sport, particularly football, was suffering because people in leadership positions treated football as their fathers’ cattle post," Mamelodi states. “He went on to say that the BFA had a ‘human monster’ as a CEO who ran the BFA as if it was his own private business.
This was hot news. It went viral,” Mamelodi writes. He notes that given his close relationship with Sebele, this was the last thing he expected from him. Mamelodi recalls that former BFA technical director, Ben Koufie, was livid and wanted “me to take on Sebele on his scandalous utterances.” However, he chose not to take further action. “I was puzzled as to why he chose to express his displeasure publicly instead of confronting me directly. I was deeply hurt,” Mamelodi says. Another incident that infuriated him to the point of contemplating legal action involved the Gazette, which questioned why FIFA had decided to reward failure with an appointment.
“Had he not done enough damage to football to be unworthy of such a prestigious appointment?” the Gazette article asked.
*Read more next week as MmegiSport is serialising the upcoming Ashford Mamelodi’s book, 'Protecting The Game' which captures the administrator’s decade-long stay as the CEO of the BFA.