BFA should go back to the drawing board!

| Friday January 22, 2010 00:00

World cup is not a joke, contrary to the mentality of those people responsible for running football in Botswana.

Growing up, I thought by now we would be far, if not in the same standard with such countries as Zimbabwe, Angola and even entertaining ideas of hosting AFCON, not scrapping to host a world cup team.  But NO, we are far from reaching those standards, the lesser said about hosting Africa's showpiece the better.

One thing that I have learnt is that, you need to invest and not be afraid of losing if you are to be successful in what you are doing. So far, we have decided to take the easy and cheap way out to run our affairs, and it has backfired rather hard on us.

Basically, these countries are not shunning us away, nor have anything against us, instead saving us the embarrassment that New Zealand, yes New Zealand caused us last year, citing sub-standard facilities. It's just a polite way of them saying, 'wake up'!

This is the world cup we are talking about, so no country would just sacrifice to have its base in Botswana only because it shares the border with the hosts, as such making it accessible or our tourism.

To be successful in luring these nations full of superstars, we should offer them a full package; unfortunately it has not been the case, hence depriving Batswana of a lifetime experience. People often blame poor performances to bad preparation, and our own national pride (The Zebras) is a living proof to this. These countries comprise of players plying their trade in demanding leagues around the world, hence the need to use world class facilities to perform well.

We often hear our local players and coaches complaining about poor facilities at their disposal. So, did those responsible for improving the standard our  of football really think they would be successful in bringing England, Brazil, and even lightweights Korea DPR to Botswana for a month long tournament, and not just any tournament but the World Cup? Well, I think we are now starting to see the answers to that.

I do appreciate the efforts by the Ministry of Youth, Sports & Culture in enhancing and nurturing talent by building multi-purpose 15 000 capacity stadiums around the country.

Sadly, it isn't enough to convince any of the teams to board a flight to Botswana.

Unless the government, BFA and other stakeholders iron out these issues, and stop resting on their laurels, then we would be in a better if not favourable position to have bid for AFCON in the future, because right now hosting a World cup team is a dream.

For now, am pleading with the ministry of tourism to embark on an irresistible campaign aimed at attracting the travelling fans from all over the world to Botswana, since BFA has once again failed us.

Samuel Ditoi Lephalo
KDU College (Malaysia)