Ramoreboli is taking charge of his first Zebras camp after being appointed a substantive Zebras’ head coach in January. He lost his first match 3-1 to Algeria in the World Cup qualifiers. He will lead the Zebras this evening against Somalia. The tactician’s appointment was first not kindly received by the Botswana Football Coaches Association. They argued that proper channels were not followed with Ramoreboli’s appointment as the post was advertised but was filled without the conduction of interviews. The association is said to have written to stakeholders including the Labour Office, Ministry of Sports and Arts, and the Botswana National Sports Commission. SportMonitor is informed that Ramoreboli has since been given a short-term three months work permit as the battle for his appointment surges on.
On the eve of the Algeria tie, the gaffer faced a revolt from the players. Though the revolt was not directed towards the coach, the players threatened to boycott facing the North Africans due to owed allowances. This was seen as a move from external forces to disturb the camp as suspicions of boardroom wars once again were spilling in to the field. The Zebras missed captain, Thatayaone Ditlhokwe, as the player was at loggerheads with the Botswana Football Association (BFA) leadership. Ditlhokwe was reportedly instructed to issue an apology after he flew from his base in Libya directly to Francistown where the game was played, ignoring advice that he should join the rest of the squad in Gaborone. On Sunday morning and just two days before the Zebras took on Somalia, the authorities were in talks over the players’ allowances as the squad once threatened to boycott the tie. In his first camp, Ramoreboli’s camp has seen more action off the field than in. The South African has since come out to say that despite the unsavoury environment, he will not quit Zebras’ role.
He said his sole responsibility is to manage the team and the BFA is better suited to smoothen the ground. “There is what you call rumours and what you call facts, or what is really happening. For me to get to a decision of resigning will not be fair to football. For me these are rumours and it will not be fair to entertain rumours unless someone can bring facts. If there are challenges, there are relevant people to deal with challenges. My job is to coach the team and make sure I manage the team. If there are challenges, I am the first person to try and deal with challenges and all the players in camp are my responsibility,” said Ramoreboli. He was responding to questions from the journalists in the post-match press briefing following the Algeria defeat on Friday. When asked if the off-field issues had a role on the team’s performance on Friday, Ramoreboli said the BFA would have issued a statement if there were any issues in the camp.
