Africa-Press – Botswana. It was supposed to be a night to reward excellence.
In the end however, it turned into a failed money-making popularity contest decided by who is well liked by the public.
The inaugural Botswana Football Association (BFA) awards, seen through the lenses of football administrators and followers left so much to be desired. But the signs may have been clear a lot earlier in their planning stages.
Alec Monyake, who was the awards’ local organising committee chairperson, said they were a creative revenue stream to acquire sponsorship owing to the challenges the association had faced to attract investors.
Since the inaugural awards farce, the BFA has kept mum on what could have transpired. Attempts to reach out to both Monyake and the BFA chief executive officer (CEO) Mfolo Mfolo did not bear fruit. Both have chosen not to field questions on the matter.
While the BFA is silent, one administrator who commented on condition of anonymity states that ‘hosting the awards was a good plan overall.’ He says appreciating players, coaches, referees and administrators was a good thing to do by the association.’
He however says ‘it seems there was a lack of preparations and thorough research on properly hosting the awards.’ “I am aware that those awards were meant to go further than just appreciation of performance; they were meant to also assist financially while trying to pull in sponsors. In my honest opinion I believe they have pushed them a little bit far-off,” he says.
The administrator believes there was ‘no balance in the voting system used. He says ‘allowing supporters only to vote is somewhat not fair as we saw the deserving people not win.’
“They could have at least established a system where the judiciary votes at a certain percentage so as the supporters to ensure the right candidates win. We all know that when it came to men’s team of the year the battle was between Jwaneng Galaxy and Gaborone United. The women’s team of the year based on achievements was meant for Double Action. However, it looked like it was a contest of popularity over excellence,” he observes.
Furthermore, what baffled some was the lack of a strong backbone by the organising committee as they allowed critics to alter their decision regarding nominees and they still blundered. “The organizing committee released the nominees to the public and obviously they should have known that people will criticize the choices they made,” he says.
He points to the addition of Galaxy’s Benson Mangolo as a point. The defender was only added to the list following criticism as to how no Galaxy player had been nominated for men’s footballer of the year award.
Another criticism was that the organisers ‘could have also altered coach of year category and included female team coaches as they had the chance and ability to do so. “The same complaint which was made regarding the men’s football team of the year category was the same complaint made regarding the coach of the year category which still baffles me,” says the administrator.
This publication had sought the BFA to clarify various issues. It sought to know from BFA ‘how much did the public vote count towards selecting the winners? How much did the BFA selectors vote count, if there were any? Is the BFA at liberty to share the vote results? It also sought to understand ‘what the association did to ensure the awards were a recognition for excellence, not just popularity contest, among many other issues.
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