Players told to save money they don’t have
Absa Bank has come up with a welcome initiative; a financial literacy programme targeted at empowering Botswana Premier League players.
The players are told to save money, presumably from their earnings. Sounds very noble and well intending until you check what goes into the players’ accounts, from clubs that is.
If it is about saving money they make from elsewhere, that is, outside football, the financial literacy programme makes a lot of sense. But if it’s from the clubs they play for, then it might as well sound like a good misplaced initiative.
Not long ago, the Footballers Union of Botswana (FUB) indicated more than 60% of local top flight sides were struggling to constantly shell players’ dues.
Some go for months without pay but they are expected to earn nothing and save something. It will take some magic wand. Absa is playing its part that cannot be undermined, but the starting point will be to ensure these players get their dues first. Saving is second in the queue after earning.
You can’t save before you earn. Yes, the financial literacy programme is a good base for players to make sound investments. For , get opportunities to play abroad where they make decent monies only to return empty handed after hard living wipes their so called ‘hard-earned’ cash.
Hopefully the Absa sermon will come in handy for those with ears and critically- cash.
Then on to a feud that has pitted two influential football figures against each other.
On the last day of March, the Botswana Football Association chief executive officer, Mfolo Mfolo’s hand was itching. It resulted in him penning a letter to the mother body’s lesser organ, the Botswana Football League (BFL). In that letter, the BFL was told to consider action against an ‘errant’ Jagdish Shah. This follows Shah’s utterances in a local newspaper, which were considered off target.
Shah had poured out his disappointment over the treatment of his Township Rollers by football rival, Nicholas Zakhem of Gaborone United. Zakhem is the BFL chairperson and eh, therefore, Shah’s boss in the fluid football hierarchy. Shah is a member of the BFL board. You might twist your mind trying to untangle the knots created by the interweaving of these football roles. Who should make what decision, becomes the pertinent question?
The recent spate should present food for thought for authorities on role clarity. Zakhem as the BFL chairperson, is effectively tasked with taking action against Shah, who is also a board member of the BFL. The secretariat’s hands are tied as it cannot take action against its superior, Shah.
There is a thin line between their roles as directors of their respective clubs and as the custodians of the BFL.
Rollers and GU are going head-to-head for the Premier League title and the brewing animosity is nothing surprising. But in football, anything goes and this is a stage where grudges are settled in the most unconventional form. Actually, local football has thrived on scandals and hardly a season passes by without the usual dose of controversy.
There is probably a stash of undiluted controversy stacked somewhere readily available and served in unlimited quantities.