We say 'Bravo' to our soccer teams

| Tuesday May 18, 2010 00:00

In almost all the divisions winners have been crowned. Black Peril and Miscellaneous Football clubs have won the South and North first divisions, respectively.

We take this opportunity to congratulate Muchacho, the former Gaborone Premier League club, which used to campaign in the first division until they were relegated to the lower divisions in the 1980s. While it took them over two decades to make a comeback to the big league they must however be congratulated for keeping the faith all these years. There certainly must be something right that the team management and the players did this time around. Their promotion into the elite league cannot be attributed to good luck, the league is a marathon and if luck played a part it must be to a very limited extent.

We welcome Black Peril into the Premier League and we hope this time around they will find ways of surviving. In the same vein, we congratulate Serowe based Miscellaneous Football Club, who are making first entry into the top league. Township Rollers deserve commendation for a perfect season. The team won the be-MOBILE Premier League and to cap it all they won the Coke Cup on Saturday.

The final, which was played at the UB Stadium, was a good advertisement of Botswana football. Two of Botswana's top sides Mochudi Centre Chiefs and Rollers, competed in the final. It was a good final, both in terms of attendance and the top of the draw football that was on display. Although Rollers won by a two-goal margin Chiefs too could have won the end-to-end game. It was a good outing, too, for the thousands of fans who attended.

While we congratulate the teams that have won we also take this opportunity to encourage those that have not won anything to start preparing now and not leave anything to chance. Teams should evaluate their weaknesses other than going with the crowd and firing coaches without an objective assessment of their teams' performances.

It is very easy for fans and fickle management to move for easy solutions like firing coaches or even offloading strikers who seem to have been off form. Quite often these spur of the moment decisions undermine the focus and unity of the teams.

We want to appeal to managements to be rational in their decisions. However, managements should not hesitate to make unpopular decisions if the situation demands so but must never yield to frivolous claims of the fanatics.

As various leagues approach the finish line, we believe football administrators will see to it that fair play prevails.There have been murmurs of match-fixing; we hope these will be thoroughly investigated. We call upon all sportsmen and women to always subscribe to fairness, which is FIFA's mantra.   

                                                                        Today's thought

                     'The accomplice to the crime of corruption is frequently our own indifference'

                                                                       - Bess Myerson