BFA Accelerates Creation Of Women’s National League

The Botswana Football Association (BFA) has said it is speeding up the creation of a national Women’s Football League. This comes after the local teams missed out on participating in the newly established CAF Women’s Champions League.

The tournament, a first of its nature in African club football, will pit eight of the best teams and is set to be played between the months of October and December.

The Women’s Champions League’s preliminary round is to be played in June with national champions seeking a berth at the finals. However, locally the women’s game is played at regional level. It proved to be straining process to determine a national champion after the outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19) disturbed the national playoffs, which were set for this month. Speaking to Sport Monitor, BFA head of women football, Tsholofelo Setlhoko, said the federation is rebuilding a national league structure.

“We are in the process of forming a national women’s football league. But first we will have north and south leagues from which the top teams from each league will qualify for the national league.

We believe that the national league will enable us to compete at tournaments such as the Champions League while also boosting our national teams,” she said. In 2016, the BFA dissolved what was known as the Super League as part of restructuring the women’s game.

The Super League was mostly contested by teams in and around the Greater Gaborone region. The league was played without a sponsor following the end of a partnership with public transport company, AT&T Monnakgotla. After almost half a decade the women’s game is still played at regional level. Setlhoko admitted that lack of funds has been a stumbling block in rebuilding the national league. “We want to have a league that will be contested by the teams from all the regions.

But the women’s football is struggling with funds. Our teams are not professional and they rely on sympathizers for funds. Lack of funds has been one of the factors that have delayed us from forming a national league. We will submit a proposal to the (BFA) executive committee to see how they can assist women football with funds” she said.