Flamingoes Take Privatisation Route
Chakalisa Dube | Monday August 10, 2020 12:29
In an interview with Sport Monitor, Club chairperson, Tirelo Thebe emphasised that it is important for the club to privatise in order for it to reduce reliance on mining giant, Botash. Botash the largest producer of natural sodium products in the SADC region has been solely backing the club for years.
Flamingoes recently won promotion to the BTC Premiership. Other clubs that have privatised immediately after winning promotion are Orapa United and Jwaneng Galaxy.
“We do not want to find ourselves wanting if at one point Botash decides to stop supporting the club. That is why it is important to for us to privatise,” he said, adding that the executive committee was given the privatisation mandate at the club’s recent Annual General Meeting (AGM).
He added that the other main reason behind the privatisation of the club is heeding calls by the Botswana Football Association (BFA) and the Botswana Premier League (BPL) that local elite clubs should go commercial.
“Our goal is to finish the process of commercialising the club by the end of October. However, because of COVID-19 challenges it is safe to say that the process will be completed before the end of the year,” Thebe said.
He noted that the privatisation of the club would entail coming up with a new constitution and strategy.
“We have been operating without a strategy. However following our promotion to the elite league we believe that it is vital to operate with a strategy. Our constitution will also have to be changed from that of a society to that of a commercial entity. The club cannot run as a commercial body with a constitution of a society,” said Thebe.
He added, “We will soon start consulting the club’s stakeholders about the proposed privatisation. This will be the first stage towards the process of privatising the club.”
Flamingoes have already started preparing for life in the elite league. The club recently acquired the services of goalkeeper coach, Kagiso Tshelametsi as part of the process.
“We have also renewed the contracts of all our technical team members including the head coach Rapelang Tsatsilebe. Tsatsilebe will be with us for one more season with an option to renew the contract. We have only released the goalkeeper coach (who was replaced by Tshelametsi),” said Thebe.
The club has also opted to keep the bulk of the players who did duty in the First Division.