Wells Accepts Loss Of Points

By Mosah Mokganedi
Correspondent | Monday January 25, 2010 00:00

The BSA League Committee punished Wells for missing the game against BMC. Wells manager, Gontlafetse Batsetswe said although they informed the committee about their failure to fulfill the fixture, they will not appeal the ruling. He said they failed to come to the game because the team had not re-assembled after the Christmas break. He asserted that they will not appeal because the decision to punish them is not likely to be rescinded.

'They have already told us that they are working under a tight schedule and we know appealing will not help us in anyway,' Batsetswe said.

He added that forfeiting points is part of the game. 'We will not appeal. We also have soft points from other teams,' Batsetswe said. He lashed at the BSA for not listening to teams' problems before meting out punishments.

Besides Wells, another Jwaneng side, Gatalamotho failed to honour the first league fixture after the Christmas break. The two Jwaneng teams share transport whenever they travel outside the town and Wells failure to honour the fixture against BMC left Gatalamotho stranded. Gatalamotho was scheduled to play Blue Angeles. Attempts to get a comment from Gatalamotho officials were futile at the time of going to press.

Meanwhile, BSA spokesperson, Kabelo Kwape said they are ready to re-consider their decisions if teams offer valid reasons. He said as per the International Softball Federation (ISF) rules and regulations, every team that misses a match automatically forfeits points but is at liberty to appeal the decision.

Kwape is worried that the 'culture' of missing matches is bringing the game into disrepute. 'In fact we are not worried that they lost points. We are concerned that their failure to honour fixtures puts us in bad light,' he explained. He denied that Wells informed BSA that they were unable to honour the fixture. He said the ISF rules and regulations state that any team should inform the league committee within a reasonable time if it is unable to honour a fixture.