The appointment of South African, Morena Ramoreboli, as Zebras coach seems to have rubbed the local coaches' association the wrong way. It's not about nationality, so they say, but the procedure.
They feel due process was not followed and in principle they are not against Ramoreboli's choice. However, judging by reactions from fans across social media platforms, the coaches' grievance was ill-conceived. As an association, they have every right to represent the voices of their affiliates as they act as a form of a union out to challenge deviations. The role of the Botswana Local Coaches Association is to protect the interests of their members. The query raised against the Botswana Football Association (BFA) might have come as a complaint against a process. In that way, it should be taken as an innocent reminder or push back against a perceived injustice. I am not privy to what choices the BFA had at its disposal in terms of hiring procedures. It is common knowledge that an organisation can advertise and follow through all the process that include short listing, interviews etc.
There is also the option of headhunting where the association can directly approach a preferred candidate to take up the job. As stated, I do not have full details as to the available options to the BFA, but whatever the chosen route, it appears to have riled the coaches association. Obviously not wanting to be seen to be too radical, its president, Nelson Olebile, appeared apologetic in that the association was not against the appointment of Ramoreboli, but rather the flouting of an employment procedure. However, despite efforts to sanitise the complaint, the message landed awkwardly. It had hints of the association being against the appointment of a foreigner (I do want to say xenophobia because that will be too strong a word in this instance). One will then not be wrong to conclude that the association failed to package its message vis-à-vis intended outcomes. From the onset, the decoders processed the message in their preferred way and concluded that the association was against the appointment of a foreigner to the Zebras post.
That might have been the intended purpose by the way, but hidden under the guise of a complaint against procedure. But it will be unfair to conclude such without the association itself making it expressly that it was indeed the case. Or may be it’s just an innocent case of the encoder and decoder not being on the same page. So if procedure was followed, the coaches' association would not have opened its mouth? Or may be its a case of the association failing to gather enough courage and say "no we are opposed to the appointment of a foreign coach" and instead conveniently hid behind the issue of procedure? It might be true. Some people deliberately communicate in ambiguous terms hoping that the recipient will sift through the heap of words and somehow pick the message being relayed. But if this was the case, the scattering method did not help judging by the reaction from the public. Next time it will do the association a world of good to package their message in a manner consistent with their intended intentions, not to stab aimlessly in the dark with the hope of landing the fatal blow.