Pressured BPL makes awards criteria public
Staff Writer | Wednesday October 25, 2017 13:29
The release follows criticism over the selection of some award winners over the seasons.
Throughout the criticism, it was not clear how the selection of winners was done and who got to vote for the candidates.
The controversy surrounding the selection of winners reached another level last season when Township Rollers defender, Simisani Mathumo only walked away with the Supporters’ Player of the Season award. Many, had anticipated that Mathumo would dominate the awards ceremony, however he was beaten to the most prestigious awards by his teammate, Lemponye Tshireletso and Jwaneng Galaxy attacker, Thero Setsile.
Tshireletso was named the Player of the Season while Setsile scooped the Players’ Player of the Season award. There were also some incidents in the past where the likes of Terrence Mandaza were adjudged to have been hard done when he walked away with just the top goalscorer award despite his dazzling performance overall in the league before his move to South Africa.
Following last season’s awards, the BPL promised to make the selection criteria public to avoid endless controversies and criticism from the football fraternity.
The BPL has since revealed that the selection for both the Player of the Season and the Coach of the Season awards is done by the current BPL coaches, captains in the league as well as journalists (one per media house).
“Each of the three categories of the jury has the same electoral weight. That is the votes of the current coaches, captains and journalists shall each make one-third of the election notwithstanding the number of voters in each category,” BPL acting chief executive officer, Thabo Ntshinogang revealed in the statement.
He said each member of the jury selects three players and coaches in decreasing order of merit with the first player getting five points while the second and third get three and two points respectively.
He said in the event of a tie for first place, the player or coach with highest number of five points becomes the winner.
He added the man-of-the-match is solely chosen on the basis of the performance including the influence in the game.
In the past two seasons, the BPL has been accused of ripping the man of the match winners off.
The winners were previously awarded airtime while the football fraternity advocated for cash prizes. The prizes have since changed this season with winners getting P1,000 cash plus P250 BTC airtime.