BFA goofs 2015 AFCON bid

MQONDISI DUBE
Staff Writer | Tuesday October 5, 2010 00:00

 

The BFA reportedly left it until late and only handed the document bid to the Botswana National Sports Council (BNSC) days before the Independence Day deadline.

The BNSC forwarded the bid document to the Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture, Shaw Kgathi, but it was reportedly too late for government to consider the proposal.

In an earlier interview, Kgathi said the government needed at least two months to peruse the document and make a decision. BFA needed government commitment before submitting its bid to the Cairo-based CAF.

The Confederation of African Football, the continent's soccer governing body, confirmed on its website that bids for the 2015 and 2017 competitions closed on Thursday, September 30, and Botswana's name was missing.

Three countries - South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Morocco - are in the running for the two editions. 'The hosting rights for the 30th and 31st editions of the continent's showpiece football event will be determined by the CAF Executive Committee at a meeting to be decided at a later date in 2011,' CAF said. 

Gabon and Equatorial Guinea will jointly host the 2012 edition and Libya in 2013. Contacted for comment yesterday, Kgathi referred questions to BFA president David Fani, who could not be reached for comment last night.  With government investing over P600 million in renovating and constructing stadia, it was expected that the BFA would take advantage and bid for the 2015 AFCON finals. Fani had made it clear that the association would submit a formal bid to host the tournament. In a media address in Gaborone early this year, Fani said the BFA would lobby the government to build a fourth stadium, which is one of the CAF requirements.

But a procrastinating BFA has let a rare opportunity to bring Africa's biggest football tournament to Botswana go begging.

The BFA leadership might once again face a public backlash after recent administrative goofs and gaffes.The dust has hardly settled on the constituency tournament saga in which Kgathi said the BFA had misled the nation on imminent FIFA sanctions.