BOBA, BOTESSA sign agreement

Botswana Boxing Association ( BOBA) and Botswana Tertiary Student Sports Association ( BOTESSA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding ( MOU), which will see the two organizations work closely to enhance development earlier this week. The partnership is expected to bridge the gaps that existed between the two organizations in terms of development, technical and administratively. According to BOTESSA Public Relations Officer ( PRO), Botho Thobega, the three year agreement will help accelerate their development agenda within the local sport. “Looking at the fact that Botessa is a group code, we need to establish relationships with other national federations to aid development. Amongst our sporting codes, we have Boxing and this is where expert opinion and training is needed, that is why we have engaged BOBA to help train some of our coaches and coordinators. Boxing is a contact sport, there is a need to provide high level training to attain success,” Thobega revealed. BOKA Secretary General, Taolo Tlouetsile said the agreement will add meaningful contribution to their development agenda, more especially the training of officials and administrators. Furthermore, the agreement will see the two organizations share resources to hold competitions. “We’ve been working with Botswana Integrated Sports Association ( BISA) in terms of development, during the evaluation of our development strategies, we realized the need to engage BOTESSA. Technically, it will increase our human resource because we will train their coaches and administrators. They are a group code and with their resources they will be able to provide us with facilities for competitions; we will exchange resources. This programme will also afford some of our athletes at tertiary level an opportunity to engage in competitive boxing,” Tlouetsile shared. The BOBA Secretary General added that BOTESSA international competitions such as CUCSSA and FISU games will afford the boxers an opportunity to compete at international stage. This according to Tlouetsile, will give local national team coaches an opportunity to select players that are proven and ready to represent the country at national level. Malawi is set to host the Confederation of University and College Sports Association ( CUCSA) between July and August and preparations for the games are already underway. Botswana hosted the 2018 edition. “If our athletes are trained by professionals, they stand a better chance to compete well at competitions such as CUCSA. Good performances at these games will also give our athletes an opportunity to qualify for the FISU World University games,” BOTESSA PRO reiterated the importance of their MoU with BOBA. She further added that it is not a given that boxing will be part of CUCSA games as the sporting codes go through a vetting process to determine the number of countries that are participating. By signing several memorandums of understanding with other affiliates, Botessa is likely to have a large representation as they have cast their net wide to give themselves a chance of representation in various sporting codes, amongst them, Karate, Table Tennis, Athletics and Football.