These are rabid optimists of course. Optimism is not always a virtue and at this point it is nothing but a vice. But even an optimist of that sort of level would have to stare the fact in the face - and the facts are not encouraging. As it is, 6 teams have already indicated that they will stay put in South Africa before and during the world sport showpiece. In this edition, we carry a story that reflects how dire the situation is becoming. However, other southern African countries have already made tangible moves to attract some teams. Nigeria seems interested in Namibia. Other regions in South Africa are said to be vigorously pursuing the remaining teams, which might deal Botswana a body blow. The taskforce that has been set-up to pursue this matter is yet to report any tangible results. However looking at the picture on the ground ga e ne e a komakoma. For all intents and purposes, we are on our way to failure. If we have failed to attract African teams headed for the AFCON tournament in Angola, a country still struggling to accommodate the needs of the continental showpiece, how do we expect to attract international teams from around the world away from a world class country such as South Africa? Botswana has not done anything that could inspire this optimism. For all intents and purposes, our chances as a country to host any of the World Cup teams are fading to nil if we ever had any. It is possible we never had any chance given the ineptitude we have displayed in attracting them to this country. Government seems to have been driven into this false sense of security, that as Botswana we would automatically have teams begging us for a place to stay. We are still caught up in the 80s syndrome when we used to market ourselves as the only place of sanity in a southern African sea of civil strife. This false sense of 'uniqueness' has continued to plague us almost 20 years after the last country in southern Africa took its independence, way past the time of violence. Authorities showed a remarkable naivety in implementing such a lacklustre campaign to lure countries here, when other countries in the region were much more proactive and aggressive.
We know furthermore that our infrastructure developments that were tagged around the World Cup are now behind schedule. The airport will not be finished until way past the tournament. We also know that our recent crusade against any sort of fun would be unattractive to any self-respecting human, let alone a fun-thirsty soccer fanatic. For a country that prides itself in being all but dead by 10 pm every night we are just too ambitious if we think we can attract teams and their legions of supporters. Our failure to attract teams indicates not just our inability to market ourselves, it also indicates something much more sinister - that we may be a turn-off for serious football teams and their followers. Optimists think we have a chance, but then again optimism is hardly an asset in these matters.
