Motlakase cry foul over Coke final venue

THATO KALA
Correspondent | Thursday April 21, 2011 00:00

 

It is understood the organisers met on Tuesday and decided that the final will be in the Gunners' backyard. 'We were supposed to be there (at the meeting); but we were never called. I'm told the game will be played in Lobatse, but if we want to be fair enough you can't take a team like Gunners to play at home against a small team like Motlakase. What is that? If they resolved it that way, then there's a problem. I feel Molepolole would be a neutral venue,' said Motlakase chairman, Mangisi Segadimo.

However, Botswana Football Association (BFA) marketing and communications officer, Phakamile Kraai, who is in the organising committee said they have not chosen a venue for the final. After playing all their Coke Cup matches away from their Palapye backyard, Motlakase has spent P50,000 in travel, accommodation and food expenses in the competition. They visited Letlapeng in Ramotswa, then Modipane United in Modipane (slightly outside Gaborone), BMC (in Lobatse) and Santos in Molepolole. They feel if they had played some of the Coke Cup games at a venue nearer to Palapye, they could have cut costs.

Segadimo said the subsidy given travelling teams is far less than what they spend. 'We have played all our Coke Cup games at venues that are far from our base. We registered our concerns with the organising committee but we were told that 'if you are picked last (during the draw), you visit the team that is picked first'.

So they don't consider the distance and it is completely unfair for us. They gave us a subsidy of P14, 000 but we have been using an average of P12,000 for each of the games we played in Gaborone,' Segadimo said.

Meanwhile, Segadimo is confident that their stadium will be completed next year. Financial challenges forced the club to shelve the project. 'The plans are still in place, come next year, we should be completing it. Right now we're completely out (financially), we are concentrating on retaining our place in the Premier League,' he said.