FUB meets for constitutional amendments
Footballers Union of Botswana (FUB) will hold an extraordinary congress tomorrow to discuss proposed constitutional amendments. Tomorrow’s gathering will then pave way for the union’s second elective congress, which is scheduled to take place at the end of next month.
According to the union’s secretary-general, Kgosana Masaseng, in the early years of its formation, FUB opted to appoint some personnel into committees based on their expertise. He, however, said things will now change following the union’s proposed changes, which will democratise its processes. He said the power now has been pushed into the hands of the members. Masaseng pointed out that some of the major changes proposed include a diversity and inclusion plan aimed at elevating the voice of female players. “There is a proposal to elevate female members to the position of second vice president, which is exclusively contested for by female players only. In the current board, there has been only one female representative, but the new proposal is to have a minimum of three,” he said. The union recently ran an online campaign to sensitise different stakeholders about the plight of women in football in the country. The campaign was also aimed at demonstrating that women’s football can no longer follow in the footsteps of the men’s game. Masaseng said the response to the campaign has been encouraging. He said they are currently dealing with some of the suggestions by other stakeholders as some of them border on new policy formulation.
He also said in the old structure of the FUB board, only the president and the vice president were elected by congress. They would then go on to appoint the treasurer, head of the legal committee, head of the medical committee, head of finance and strategic committee, head of players relations committee and head of women’s football committee.
“In terms of the new structure the positions are as follows; President, First Vice President, Second Vice President (who shall be a female),
Treasurer, Player Relations Officer, Player Development Officer, Strategic Relations Officer, Women Football Representative, Male Players Representative, Female Players Representative. In 2016, a decision was made by the board to hire the secretary-general on a full-time basis to head the secretariat,” he said.
He said that they will wait for a writ of elections to be issued before they know who will show interest in the positions. He added that the changes come with the establishment of the independent electoral committee, which will see the conduct of the elections from those expressing interests until the voting process is concluded.
Meanwhile, Masaseng said they are in the process of meeting with the newly formed Botswana Football League (BFL) where they will discuss the National Dispute Resolution Chamber (NDRC) rules, the draft Code of Conduct and Disciplinary Procedure, standard contract, player development programme, regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players as well as the BFL constitution.