Newcastle deal fails as English side wants P150m
Wednesday, June 29, 2022 | 12880 Views |
Minister of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture, Tumiso Rakgare said Newcastle was offering the front space on their jersey. Other benefits included Botswana being displayed on perimeter boards during all Newcastle home matches, Botswana branded on the team's training kit, and interviews for pre-and post-matches with the coach wearing Botswana colours.
Addressing the press in Gaborone today, Rakgare said Newcastle wanted P150 million, which the government could not afford.
“We tried to look for the money and we were unsuccessful. We are not dropping the idea but we will continue to negotiate with Newcastle. They were even offering that former players could come here to do training camps. We are going to try again next season,” he said.
He added such partnerships are working well for Rwanda with Arsenal and Zanzibar with Southampton. Rakgare said people do not know Botswana and it is important to make it a point that the country is marketed. Rakgare said the idea was meant to benefit Botswana tourism.
“The partnership was meant to expose our tourism. When the number of tourists increases in our country, as sport we will benefit. We will always traverse the world to look for investors,” he said.
Rakgare said at first they negotiated with Chelsea but the deal fell through because of the money the club quoted.
He said together with Minister of Trade Mmusi Kgafela, they engaged the owners of Newcastle and they also gave an offer. He said upon return from Newcastle, they discussed the matter with the ministries of Finance and Tourism.
“The benefits are huge. When we were there, we spoke to them about the possibility of establishing a High-Performance Centre in Botswana and a state-of-the-art football academy. They said that is possible. Personally, I feel what they were asking for is not a lot. The challenge is that our financial year has already started,” he said.
On Saturday at around 9am it was reported that an accident claimed the lives of five people who happened to be related. The car they were travelling in is said to have attempted to overtake only to realise that the oncoming car was fast approaching. When the driver tried to get back to his lane, he hit the car he was trying to drive past whilst overtaking.Many quickly took to social media to show sympathy to the victims and also offer their...