Sport Associations tackle boardroom squabbles

It is rare to find a National Sport association’s executive committee pulling together as a team to achieve their mandate as per the promise they made when voted into office because everyone now wants to push their own agenda taking advantage of the platform they were afforded by the affiliates. Non-compliance and governance in sport leadership is amongst reasons as to why Botswana sport is stagnant and not producing any positive outcomes from administrators to athletes on the field.

Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development through the National Sport governing body Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC) took a decision to suspend all sport activities and international travels last month in the wake of Corona Virus Pandemic which left almost all sportsmen in the world idle. According to the information gathered by The Patriot Sport, majority of the local sport associations are utilising this period of “no action” to fix their relations amongst each other and reflect on their leadership as far as compliance and governance is concerned.

In an exclusive interview with The Patriot Sport, the recently resurrected Botswana Table Tennis Association (BTTA) President Kudzanani Motswagole said they are currently going through their constitution and documents that governs their association for compliancy purposes.

“We have been out of action for almost a year due to administration issues that halted the progress and growth of our sport because of certain leaders that occupies executive positions with wrong motives. We are in a recovery process and we are focusing improving our communication strategy, roll out plan of at development level and players transfer act so that when the situation normalises, we are ready to implement. The is the right time for planning and fixing all the mess that deter us from progress and obviously we don’t have time to meet due to national lock down, but it doesn’t bar us from thinking,” he said.

On their part the struggling Botswana Netball Association (BONA)’s President Malebo Raditladi said they are hard at work preparing reports and revisiting their documents to ensure that they are complaint as opposed to the none-existent status that have seen their performance level drop drastically.

“We have been working as a team of various communication mediums and we are busy collecting documents and information from our affiliate teams, so we submit what is required by the registrar of societies. This gives our members more time to re establish professionalism in managing which will be the face of the association in order to attract sponsors and other investors who can contribute towards the growth of the sport,’’ Raditladi said.

National Sport Associations such as Botswana Basketball Association (BBA), Botswana Badminton Association (BBA), Botswana Karate Association (BOKA) and Botswana Taekwondo Federation(BTF) are amongst National Sport Associations that have been hit by infightings within its leaders that have seen their performance regress over the years.