Mamelodi, BFA contract come to end
Botswana Football Association ( BFA) has decided against extension of the contract of the football stalwart administrator, Bennett Mamelodi to lead the transformation of Botswana Football League with the aid of Union of European Football Associations Assist ( UEFA Assist).
Last year, following successive engagements between the BFA and the UEFA Assist officials, local football stalwart, Mamelodi was appointed as the Project Manager of the said transformation.
Mamelodi’s appointment was confirmed by BFA President, Maclean Letshwiti stating that his core responsibility was to implement the defined 12 fields of action, as contained in the
FIFA Botswana Strategic Plan of June 2020 on a 6 month assignment. The 12 points of action aimed at transforming football within all stakeholders, are new governance and business model, corporate identity, communication strategy, marketing strategy, broadcasting rights, sponsorship, technology, players, coaches and referees, fans, sustainable football, women football league and lastly, corporate social responsibility. After the six months of the exercise elapsed, the BFA has opted to allow the former Botswana Premier League CEO to move on.
This was confirmed by BFA’s Chief Executive Officer, Mfolo Edwin Mfolo, who exclusively told this publication that Mamelodi has served his time. “We have not extended his contract primarily because the scope of the work that needs to be done is with the BFL. As the BFA, we will just provide monitoring oversight of the project, the implementation of the work- now 80 percent of the work- is with BFL,” Mfolo said.
This publication previously reported that some official delegates of the UEFA Assist project were reportedly left perplexed in their visit to Botswana, upon realization that project manager, Bennett Mamelodi was neither BFA nor BFL employee.
According to the reports, UEFA Assist officials wanted the person leading the project to hold a high position within BFA or BFL offices.
Recommendations suggested that the project manager should either be the BFA or BFL CEO as it is the case in other countries they had already visited.