Masunga stadium derelict
Chakalisa Dube | Friday September 19, 2014 14:03
The dire situation is not about to improve as the custodians of the complex, the Botswana National Sports Council (BNSC) have no resources to maintain it.
“The grant we receive from the government is not enough to allow us to maintain the stadiums around the country,” said the BNSC chairperson Solly Reikeletseng in a telephone interview with Mmegi Sport this week. “If we are to devote a lot of money maintaining the sports facilities it could mean that we will not be able to focus on sports development. However, it will not be viable for any country to neglect sports development,” he said.
The under-utilised multimillion-pula complex is in an unkempt state with overgrown grass and indigenous trees enjoying uninterrupted cover in and around the buildings and partly obscuring view.
Trees and grass sprout unhindered in between concrete seats with some overgrown tree canopies forming an umbrella for some of the uncovered stands.
The football pitch, which is made of artificial turf, is equally in a bad state with the white plastic markings wearing off. The courts for various sporting codes such as tennis are slowly also wearing off. Except for the security officers, who man the facility and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks that are utilising some of the offices, it appears as if the complex has no one to look after. Mmegi Sport also learnt that after the stadium was handed over to the BNSC by the government, most of the employees who maintained the facility were deployed to other government departments.
In its formative days the facility hosted games involving the then Francistown based Premier League outfits TAFIC and TASC, who are now playing in the Debswana First Division North league. The teams later abandoned playing in Masunga because they found it less attractive and expensive to their fans who were forced to travel 120 kilometres to and from to watch their teams.
With this arrangement having long ceased, the complex is kept busy from becoming a white elephant by occasionally hosting of schools sports competitions as well as some constituency tournaments. It also sporadically hosts non-sporting activities mostly for government organisations.
Some pundits are even of the opinion that building the sports complex in Masunga was a good plan but in the wrong place.
They based their argument on the fact that Masunga village is not strategically placed to enable the complex to host activities that can generate enough income in order to bee self-sustaining. There are currently no sporting teams in the village or the wider North East District to utilise the facility. Reikeletseng, however, said they are doing all in their power to save the stadium. He said that they collaborate with other organisations or sports clubs to always host events at the complex to boost revenue in order to maintain it.
“But again it is impossible because we do not have money to mobilise stakeholders and organise such events,” said the BNSC boss.
Reikeletseng added that even when sports teams are allowed to solely use the facility in exchange of paying a certain percentage of the revenues they earn from gate takings, it wouldn’t be enough to maintain the facility.
He acknowledged that the location of the complex might not be strategically appealing to attract big events. Reikeletseng would not, however, state how much money the BNSC need to maintain the sporting complex.
Asked if the sports council would at any point consider approaching the government to resume the maintenance of the sporting complex, Reikeletseng said he did not rule out going that route.
“We also continue coming up with strategies as to how we can raise revenues to maintenance of stadiums around the country,” he said.