Team sport in danger – Molaodi
Calistus Kolantsho | Monday October 19, 2026 06:00
This is evident in the grants allocated to different sport codes and the selection of teams to compete at major competitions such as the Olympics, where individual sports dominate.
“It is an issue that we should not hide. We must put it on the table and talk about it. At the coming Olympics, you will see only one or two, or maybe none at all, team sports announced as going,” Molaodi said during the Botswana Volleyball Federation (BVF) national congress last weekend.
“Maybe individual sport is cheaper, but there are other dynamics. Let us discuss it so that we get the position of the Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC), National Olympic Committee (NOC), and the government towards team sport. It is known that team sport is expensive, but it has always been expensive,” he argued.
Meanwhile, Molaodi said volleyball should reclaim its glory days, when the men's and women's teams used to dominate the region and rank amongst the top 10 in Africa.
He noted both teams have now dropped out of the top 20, not because they have failed to do enough, but because other countries have stepped up their game.
Molaodi added that perhaps Botswana celebrated too much, believing they had made it, when the real challenge was staying at the top, which was where they had fallen short. He said volleyball must regroup and put strategies in place not only to reach the top but also to remain there for a sustained period.
“When I go to competitions as a technical delegate, at every single one of them, people still ask me, ‘Where is the Botswana team?’ because they still remember those days. We want to restore that pride as a nation of being amongst the high-performing nations. That restoration is in your hands as the executive committee, affiliates and everyone involved. That is a challenge for us. “Whilst developing young athletes so that they become better athletes, we must recognise that they may not make it on their own. They need coaches and managers who are competent enough to enhance their abilities and help them perform at a high level, because that is critical,” he said.
Molaodi said that before they could think about high performance, they must concentrate on grassroots development. He said they had believed school sport was the answer to grassroots development, but the few years without it had exposed a huge gap.
He added that they could not continue hoping that school sport would be reinstated without considering what would happen if it did not return.
“We need to put programmes in place and ask ourselves what the alternative is for developing youngsters. That is a challenge we should take on as leaders. That is why I was saying coaches belong on the grounds, not here attending a national congress. In the absence of coaches in schools, we cannot just fold our arms. Our countries have progressed. We never thought clubs from Eswatini or Lesotho could beat clubs from Botswana, but nowadays they do it easily,” Molaodi said.
For his part, BVF president George Keotsene said volleyball went through a period of inactivity between June and November 2025. When they took office, their immediate responsibility was to restore momentum and visibility to the sport. He said they needed partners to achieve this and had to make the sport more visible.
“We underwent governance restructuring following a Special General Meeting (SGM) in November 2025. We tried to restore leadership accountability and stability following mediation by CAVB,” he said.
Keotsene said the federation had relied on school sport without adequately preparing for its absence. He said Botswana's volleyball teams finished last in both the boys' and girls' competitions at last year's AUSC Region 5 Games, an indication that grassroots development was lagging.
He said volleyball wanted to move away from dependence on government and become financially independent.
Sponsorships should not be the federation's only source of income, he added, noting that whilst there was nothing wrong with seeking partners, the federation also needed to develop ways of generating its own revenue.