BNSC dares BOKA as hosting sparring escalates
Calistus Kolantsho | Friday November 9, 2018 11:55
BNSC has not approved BOKA’s request to host the championships, arguing the karate body has undermined its authority. BNSC chairperson, Solly Reikeletseng told Mmegi Sport that they rejected the application due to reasons that could not be divulged to the public.
“We cannot reveal the reasons for rejecting the application because we want to protect BOKA. We are not saying that we do not have funds to assist them in hosting, but they failed to follow the hosting policy,” he said.
Reikeletseng said BOKA president, Tshepo Bathai must desist from public debates against BNSC on the matter.
“BNSC has been established to regulate sport in this country and we cannot sit and watch when our authority is being undermined. Sponsors are warned that they should not support BOKA because BNSC has rejected their proposal,” Reikeletseng said.
He said it was wrong for karate to set up a Local Organising Committee (LOC) before the board approved their proposal. According to a source, the BNSC was not pleased with the inclusion of former BNSC board member, Boitshoko Tsiane as LOC chairperson. For his part, Bathai said he was not aware of Tsiane’s issue.
“They (BNSC) have not approved it because they are not able to fund the tournament. We are still exploring alternative funding for the event, and then we go ahead. If we cannot find alternative funding then we would cancel the event and probably wait for the next 20 years before we can host UFAK again,” he said.
Bathai said they hosted Region 5 in May under similar circumstances. The budget for UFAK championship is P1,950,000. Bathai said they had requested P950,000 from the BNSC of which P365,000 was to pay for the use of the University of Botswana indoor sport centre. He said the LOC has made a commitment to raise P1 million for the event. He added that they had put together 10 sponsors who had made a commitment toward the event.“Even if BNSC is not funding us, we would like them to be part of the championship. They are an important stakeholder,” he said, adding that the benefits of hosting outweigh the costs.
“We are expecting more than 40 countries and on average each country would be spending almost P500,000. That is what we spend at each UFAK championships each year. Even next year, we will spend the same amount if it is held somewhere else,” Bathai said.
He said UFAK Championship is an Olympic qualification event and is very important to BNSC and Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC). Meanwhile, Bathai said they had planned an LOC launch for December 4, 2018. The UFAK is scheduled for July 9 to 14, 2019.