RUGBY RETURNS WITH SPONSORSHIP BOOST
In just under two months after retaining his position as the president of Botswana Rugby Union (BRU), the coronavirus pandemic struck before Sean Irish and his committee could set their wheels in motion.
Post State of Emergency, Irish has revealed that competitive local rugby is set for a return and new technical sponsorships for the national team and other developments will be unveiled.
“We have been given a very good sponsor by the Barry O’connor insurance brokers for the national team, which we will be launching soon. We also have two potential sponsors for the league, we might also land a sponsor for the school sports league, and we are just waiting to hear on the status of school sports,” Irish stated.
According to close reports, the technical sponsorship for the national teams will be around P250 000 and the league sponsorship will be around P50 000.
Irish also shared on how the suspension of sports in the last 18 months has affected their development programmes.
The committee assumed office in February 2020 and Covid-19 has been a major stumbling block in their efforts to implement some of the initiatives meant to enhance the growth of the sport.
“We only really have had three months of the last two years since we started operating as the current committee. Our biggest plan was obviously to develop rugby and bridge the gap between schools’ rugby and senior rugby by creating the under 21 league. We need to see how we will make up for the lost two seasons,” he said.
The BRU president also hinted that they possibly have lost some of the players they had roped into their structure as they have not been active for a long time. With rugby still a growing sport in the country, mass participation is key to enhance development and generate more interest in the sport.
“We’ve probably lost some of our potential players in the last two seasons. We have got quite a lot of different programmes, we have got ‘begin rugby’ and ‘Re ba bona ha’ programmes that may need a relook at, we recapture that gap we’ve lost. But from governance perspective, during the break we were managed to get a lot of administration work done so I think going forward we’ll see a lot of good things in the field.
Irish further extended his appreciation to International Rugby Union and Rugby Africa for their continued support to BRU during and post lockdowns.
“Rugby Africa through World Rugby have given us some money (P280 000) which we’ve used to ensure that compliance to COVID-19 protocols is fully adhered to, and it has really been helpful to us,” BRU president shared.
BRU are also expected to announce the Sevens coach before the end of next week as the team readies for African Sevens tournament in January.
The last time local rugby clubs tasted action was way back in March, and the clubs should be eager to return after a five months hiatus.