Gloomy outlook for sports

“We recognize and appreciate that the game of football is loved by many people locally and we remain committed to exploring opportunities where we can continue to support the game and bringing it to people. We appreciate the challenges that the pandemic has forced all of us to grapple with and we recognize that much of what was planned was difficult if not impossible to implement.

We will endeavor to seek opportunities to continue to work with Botswana Football Association,” he said. ABSA Bank Botswana has made a commitment to sponsor the national league to the tune of P7.6 million for a period of two years in 2019 but only the first year sponsorship was utilized since sports was suspended in early 2020 until now.

Some codes have however not been lucky as their sponsors hit a pause or completely pulled out.

“The ent ire country has been affected by the pandemic and it is quite unfortunate that we are also not in a position to support other corporate social responsibility initiatives in the manner that we used to assist.

The funds we have always set aside for developing communities in many areas such as sports have been reduced due to the given reasons.

It is our hope that once the economy stabilizes we will be able to resuscitate all deferred sponsorships,” explained BOFINET Public Relations, Marketing and Communication Manager Lesego Goitsemang.

BOFINET’s P5. 7 mi l l ion sponsorship towards softball ended a month ago and t he company won’t be going for renewal.

In the wake of the pandemic last year, Metropolitan Botswana reduced their 2019 sponsorship towards the National Chess Championships from P120000 to P90 000, marking a significant P30 000 decrease.

It was the first time in the history of Botswana Chess Federation( BCF) and Metropolitan‘ s 14 year relationship that the latter decreased the funds.

Wi t h many teams and associations fighting to keep their current sponsorships, for codes which have been without sponsors, life is unbearable. For a long time sporting codes like boxing, volleyball and netball have struggled to bring on board sponsors despite being regarded among the big five codes.