Players left jobless as contracts lapse
Chakalisa Dube | Friday July 3, 2020 13:39
The Botswana Football Association (BFA) is yet to set the date of the transfer window period thus casting a bleak future for elite players.
The player registration period opens twice in local football, at the start of the season and mid-through the season. The period is the only chance for players locally to secure employment.
The BFA recently aborted the league season, meaning that clubs would not hold on to players whose contracts expired on June 30. The promotional playoffs are seen as the hurdle the BFA has to overcome before a decision on the start of the next season could be made.
Under these circumstances, Footballers Union of Botswana (FUB) secretary general, Kgosana Masaseng admitted that elite players may go for a longer than usual period, without employment. He also said the FUB hands are tied regarding the situation as they continue to engage with the BFA, as the players’ futures now lie on the association’s hands.
“We do not know when the next season will start, secondly (when) the transfer window will open.
The tricky part to that is if the BFA is to open the window now, it means they have to close it by August because you cannot open it twice in one season, unless it is mid-way through the season, which is normally January.
You cannot open the window now, because for starters we do not know when the next season will start and we do not know whether the season will still use the August to May calendar.”
“We are engaging with the BFA, but we do not want to push them to open the transfer window because teams would not want to sign players not knowing what it is in for them.
So we would rather play safe and continue to engage with each other, if activities are going to be back soon, then higher chances for our players to get signed by interested teams,” Masaseng told Mmegi Sport. On average at least five players per team are left out of contract at the 16 elite league clubs. Masaseng said the FUB does not have the exact number of ‘jobless’ players currently, as he said their chances of getting employment soon as have been heavily hampered by the coronavirus (COVID-19). “We are not aware of how many players will be out of contract as of July 1, because the registration is done by the league. We will only know when we do our out of contract players’ tournament. There is a discussion for the NEC (National Executive Committee) to complete all football activities.
It has always been the case where players go for months without employment, but the dynamic this time is we are not sure when the season will start and COVID-19 has messed up every other chance of getting them employment due to the uncertainty of when the BFA activities will be concluded and secondly when the next season will start,” he said.
A number of elite clubs have already cut their players’ wages as they feel the pinch of the COVID-19 pandemic. League champions, Jwaneng Galaxy, Orapa United and Township Rollers are high profile clubs that have slashed wages by at least half.