Funding delays hockey calendar
Botswana Hockey Association ( BHA) is still planning to kick start their first ever competition for this year later this month, due to their financial struggles.
As they build towards a return of the league action scheduled for beginning of May 2023, BHA will host a hockey 5’ s open tournament, slated for 23rd of April in Gaborone.
Last month, the association failed to send BHA youth team to Junior Africa Cup ( JAC) at Ismailia, Egypt due to lack of funds.
BHA president, Unaswi Matebu said that they consider JAC competition as a development platform that exposes their athletes to the international competition levels, giving them the muchneeded experience and more game time. “JAC is a feeder to our senior national team therefore in a way it helps us see the future of Botswana Hockey and the outcome of these competition helps see the effectiveness of our development programme therefore failing to attend international competitions negatively affect the growth of hockey in Botswana,” Matebu said.
She said that local competitions are not enough to inform their progress, saying that more international participation will help them know if there’s need to change their development strategy, improve or maintain it for a certain period.
Matebu acknowledged that BHA has been financially struggling and they are fully dependent on the Botswana National Sports Commission ( BNSC) national grant which alone is not enough to sustain the sport throughout the year. “Our calendar of events is usually affected because if we don’t get support from donors, sponsors or individuals, we usually postpone them to a later date. Nevertheless, we usually don’t fold our hands and wait for national grants but knock on doors of potential sponsors,” She added.
She said that the delayed national
grant from BNSC severely affects national team competitions and preparations which are usually supposed to be in action around June – August. “We have less effective train camps because we usually rely on athletes to sponsor themselves which is usually difficult for most of them. Some don’t make it and the coaches have less time with their teams. The team preparations are negatively impacted,” Matebu said.
She highlighted that they are currently working on securing something
to boost their pockets and hopefully the outcome will bring positive results. Meanwhile, Africa Hockey Federation ( AHF) has partnered with Asia Hockey Federation to help with the training of level one coaches and umpires. They also provide BHA with free seminars and workshops for coaches, umpires, as well as technical officials. In order to reduce the costs, BHA couldn’t afford to send coaches abroad so they have settled for online courses which are accessible with reduced fees.