BFL’s roadmap to land of milk and honey
After 48-months, the local elite football landscape would have changed. A new establishment, the Botswana Football League (BFL) is promising a gigantic setting change. But will they thrive where others failed, wonders Mmegi Sport Correspondent,
On Tuesday, the founding BFL leadership in chairperson, Aryll Ralobala and chief executive officer (CEO), Solomon Ramochothwane faced the press for the first time. This was 96 hours after the Botswana Football Association (BFA) gave teams the green light to start training after a long halt. To the disappointment of football scribes at Lekidi Football Centre and those streaming online platforms, there was nothing tangible to report back to the audience on the finer details of the return of the league. Burning questions on the league dates, sponsorship and broadcasting rights were left hanging.
The talk of commercialisation is once again on the horizon. To many, it is reminiscent of a more than a decade-long compliance manual known as ‘Bosele Declaration’. The first phase of the new compliance template is to have full time playing professionals. “We have adopted a constitution that says that all Botswana football league should be commercial.
That means everything should be done commercially and all the players should be employed professionally. The thing of volunteerism is a thing of the past. It is not going to be a walk in the park as most of our teams are run by societies, which should come to an end and commercial entities should take over. It is going to be a long road to change the mindset of the football setup.
The players should not cry for their dues at any month-end, it must be a thing of the past. We are to persuade teams to change the structure from society to commercial entities,” Ramochothwane told the press this week. As per his statement, the new manual centres on players’ welfare. However, the BFL faces an environment where there are ever-present squabbles between clubs and players’ union over salaries. As reported in 2019, the average salary of a Premiership
player is P2,000. The impact of COVID-19 would aggravate the situation. In the last 15 months, clubs have felt the COVID-19 pinch and cut and halted pay due to a lengthy period of inactivity.
The Footballers Union of Botswana (FUB) said only seven of the 16 Premiership teams were able to pay the players’ dues on time, and this was before local football was impacted by COVID-19.
The clubs will be expected to be prudent in order to compete in the league. Finances would be submitted to see if the clubs can compete in the elite league while being restricted to spending within their means. At the moment, most clubs do not have sponsors as they solely rely on grants from the league authorities.
Following a season of playing for free, the clubs are running on near to empty coffers. As the game is set to kick off in August, spectators are prohibited at match day venues. The BFL is ready to shift its focus as the club’s main financial source would be through broadcasting rights.
“I hear people say the clubs’ main source of finance is gate taking, which is wrong. You can do the research. The main source is TV rights, the second one is the sale of players, then the sale of replicas, while the fourth and last is, unfortunately, the gate takings.
This is a four-year plan and by the end of July we will announce our partners as a start to this project,” Ramochothwane said.