Chess at witt’s end
Botswana Chess Federation (BCF)’s efforts to take a team to the Africa Individual Chess Championships have hit a snag after it emerged that Botswana National Sports Commission (BNSC) cannot fund the trip.
The Africa Individual Chess Championships are scheduled for Lilongwe, Malawi from the 17th to the 28th of May. As one of the biggest tournaments in the Africa Chess calendar, BCF had expressed interest to compete in the event, however all they got from the commission was permission to attend the tournament.
“Kindly note that Botswana National Sport Commission grants permission to participate in the above mentioned championship.However, we will not be able to fund any subsequent request related to this championship due to financial constraints,” reads the letter from BNSC addressed to BCF president.
BCF becomes the second federation not to be funded this year after Botswana Hockey Association early this year. While BNSC financial difficulties started in the last quarter of the 2020/21 financial year, it seems like the dire situation has been carried into the current financial year. “What I can just say is that we are disappointed because this is one of the tournaments we were willing to compete at. After seeing Zebras hosting Zimbabwe locally and jetting off to Algeria for AFCON qualifiers and the athletics team having gone as far as Poland our believe was that things have normalized and we will all be assisted to take part in our competitions. But it seems like that’s not the case. It’s very unfair to see other federations being assisted financially while others are just left in the lurch,
” said BCF president Motlhokomedi Tlhabano. Reached for comment, BNSC Chief Executive Officer, Tuelo Serufho said they are still trying to implement a new funding model for national sports associations (NSAs). “What I can confirm is that we have been notified of how much we will get from the ministry in this financial year. The challenge is the money is a relatively small amount as we appreciate that government is facing financial challenges due to fighting
COVID-19. So as of now we are working on implementing a new funding model and NSAs will be engaged as soon as we are done. As such there are no grants allocations as of now,” he said.