Pheto and committee face the axe
Kabelo Boranabi | Friday October 10, 2025 10:03
But reputation, like a championship run, is fragile. In the space of two seasons, the club has gone from a period of high-profile investors and public confidence to a governance crisis that now leaves chairperson, Bafana Phempheretlhe Pheto, and his committee teetering on the brink of dismissal. Rollers head to Palapye tomorrow for a make-or-break special assembly.
Last weekend's general assembly decision to place Rollers in a State of Emergency and recall the Executive Committee (EXCO) and National Branches Committee (NBC) is the latest and clearest symptom of months of investor churn, unpaid obligations and destabilising politics that have dogged the club since the exit of Jagdish Shah.
The recall, pushed by the club’s general members, dissolved the current EXCO and NBC with immediate effect and installed an interim steering committee to steer the club to “a suitable investor”.
Shah’s departure from Rollers removed a stabilising hand. The businessman had been the club’s dominant financier and power broker; his exit left a vacuum that successive investors failed to fill cleanly or consistently.
Shah’s farewell to administration was widely reported and marked the end of an era in which Township Rollers operated with a central, if controversial, benefactor.
Into that vacuum stepped Jimmy Haskins Kereng, who, for some time, looked like the pragmatic successor and an investor willing to bridge the gap and promise a commercial plan for the club. But Kereng’s stay was short and punctuated by whispers of disagreement over terms and the limits of influence.
Despite early assurances that he would remain involved, he ultimately withdrew from the presidency and his financing role in mid-2024, a signal that the club’s investor pipeline was shakier than advertised. Perhaps the most dramatic episode came with the arrival and abrupt exit of Tendani Sebata and his Sebata Holdings. Sebata’s sponsorship and short-lived presidency promised fresh capital and a new chapter.
Instead, his resignation, effective May 31, 2025, left Rollers scrambling and, by some accounts, unable to meet basic financial commitments to players and staff. Reports from the region suggest unpaid wages, fixture disruptions and players boycotting matches, classic signs of a club in financial distress.
The cumulative effect of these exits: investor fatigue, erosion of public confidence and a board riven by factionalism.
Members and stakeholders, fed up with the lack of transparency and the recurrent “investor solution” that repeatedly unravels, moved to act decisively at the previous weekend's assembly.
In a three-year and two football seasons period, three financiers have left, leaving the most successful club in Botswana deserted and dry.
Pheto’s chairmanship has been framed by critics as an era that tried to keep a fragile ship afloat, but perhaps at the cost of accountability. After serving in the club’s structures for a decade, his short stint in the championship, one would argue, Pheto arrived at an unpleasant time.
The general assembly’s recall suggests members believe the EXCO and NBC failed to protect the club’s long-term interests, poorly managed investor relations, and neglected the club’s operational stability.
Whether the recall is a justified reset or an opportunistic power play will be argued, but what is not arguable is that membership confidence has frayed to the point of institutional intervention.
The steering committee now has blunt tasks: stabilise cash flow, protect player contracts, validate or void pending deals done by the old committees and crucially find a credible investor without repeating the mistakes of the past.
The club was charged this week by the Botswana Football League (BFL) for failure to honour a league game against Calendar Stars. Furthermore, 20 Rollers players were each slapped with a charge for their role in the debacle.
It was the first in recent memory that the team missed honouring a league match in decades and echoing the direness of the situation at the club.
In Palapye, this Saturday could have an honourable departure as memories of the 2016 internal wars scream the impatience of the club's faithful.
Former chair, Mookodi Seisa, was then escorted from the Molepolole Sports Complex in a league game as Rollers supporters bayed for his blood.
At the time, the majority of the club was welcoming Shah’s investment, whilst the other group was not keen on the businessman.