Chess clubs told to get organized
Tumelo Mouwane | Monday June 22, 2015 12:02
Speaking at the BCF’s annual general meeting (AGM) held in Lobatse on Saturday, the federation president Tshenolo Maruatona said in order to reach international standards of competitiveness, chess clubs need to invest their time in the sport.
“We need to see our clubs having regular training sessions, players need to invest their time in the sport in order to reach their highest level of competitiveness. Best players in the country are so because they invest the quality time in sports. The effort you put in is equal to the benefits you reap,” Maruatona said.
Maruatona said the committee also worries that club structures are not always in place. “We are struggling to get the clubs in to order since some clubs don’t have structures. We only have few clubs with structures set in place. There are some clubs that get organised only when they are informed of events. We have schools which are more organised than clubs. General BCF members have to help us in resurfacing chess in Botswana.’’ Maruatona said.
Speaking at the same gathering, the Botswana National Sports Council (BNSC) chairperson, Solly Reikeletseng said they have allocated funds to help in capacity building. “We finance federations and we have allocated money for development of sports in Botswana. The ten percent of the grant is allocated for national championships . The money is allocated and the teams control the money, it has to be used to develop different sporting codes in Botswana,” Reikeletseng said.
In addition to the allocated BNSC funds, Maruatona told delegates that they have secured increase in sponsorship from Metropolitan Botswana and Debswana. But, he did not disclose the sponsorship figures.
The federation president also hinted on the issue of establishing a chess league in Botswana, but did not dwell much into it.