MASITAOKA ROCKED BY COVID
The beautiful game received an ugly reminder of the dangers of Covid-19 this week as an outbreak of the virus forced the Botswana Football League (BPL) to cancel four Premier League games.
On Tuesday, the BFL issued a statement confirming the postponement of midweek fixtures involving: Gilport Lions, Morupule Wanderers, Masitaoka and Jwaneng Galaxy after the clubs were struck down with Covid.
Masitaoka in particular have been hard hit, with 17 of the 30 man playing squad, as well as five technical members testing positive for Coronavirus.
The newly-promoted Molepolole side had been due to play Extension Gunners on Wednesday. It is their third match to be called off in a row, after nine players and two officials returned positive results in the build up to last week’s encounter with Mahalapye Railway Highlanders.
Ahead of the game, a number of players had complained of chest pains and headaches, with the Covid tests confirming the worst.
As a precaution, players who had originally tested negative but developed flu-like symptoms then re-tested with PCR.
Although their results were originally meant to be released on Friday 17th December, they were delayed by a backlog. This meant Saturday’s eagerly anticipated re-acquaintance with Township Rollers was called off.
Not willing to take any chances, Majatlhaga decided to re-test their whole squad, as well as all technical
team members suffering with headaches.
Taking over the narrative, Masitaoka Coach, Nelson Olebile, told Voice Sport, “The whole team did rapid tests last Monday at the training ground before training. Even those who were negative were advised to go on isolation until we retested on Friday. The results came out on Sunday and the numbers increased. We have now missed three fixtures.”
As for his team’s well-being, the experienced tactician revealed everyone who tested positive was recovering well.
For his part, BFL Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Solomon Ramochotlhwane, commended Botswana Football Association (BFA) medical team and
Greater Gaborone DHMT for assisting clubs in terms of testing and observing Covid protocols.
“We realised Covid has hit us during our random sampling where we test 25 percent of players per team fortnightly and this is how the virus was first discovered at Police XI and Security Systems. The next process is to test the whole team. Where the teams are limited in terms of the finances, we have authorised testing centres we refer them to, including government clinics. The fortunate part is that as football, we are able to easily do our contact tracing,” he said.
Despite the outbreak, Ramochotlhwane added the BFL expect the league to continue as planned unless government advises them otherwise.