Africa-Press – Botswana. The decision to give Botswana Football League (BFL) its autonomy was not producing the desired results, says Botswana Football Association CEO, Mfolo Mfolo.
Mfolo said during a press conference in Gaborone on Tuesday that a decision was therefore taken to strip BFL off its autonomy temporarily as Botswana Football Association (BFA) was blamed for giving it sovereignty without proper governance.
In the BFA general assembly of October 10, 2022, he said a decision was taken to give BFL autonomy, in which among other things, it was expected to run the Premier League and national first division leagues.
He said the aim of establishing BFL to run the league was aimed at professionalising and commercialising football adding that prior to giving BFL autonomy, a transitional committee was put in place that gave birth to BFL.
“What has happened in the past three years has not been good for football. We have to restructure it for the good of football. The ultimate goal is for the league to run professionally and as a separate entity,” he said
Meanwhile, according to a press release from BFA, a decision to strip off BFL of its autonomy is meant to allow for a proper transitional process to take place and to equip BFL with the necessary tools and strengthen its governance and administrative capacity in transitioning autonomy back to the BFL.
According to the release, the transitional process shall be in the form of a four-phase approach, which will be implemented through a structured and multi-phased process to transition to ensure the return of well-grounded autonomy to BFL.
The four-phase approached adopted to towards the reinstatement of BFL, Mfolo said it entailed running the league as an association and establishing a management team to oversee league operations. In the second year of preparing for transition, he said the process must establish issues of financial assistance and strengthen governance and management structures, bearing in mind that the ultimate move was to professionalise the league, which was financially independent.
Mfolo said identifying a company that would run the league would take into account the model of shareholding between the league and the football association.
“The ball was now in our hands to establish how we want the transition to happen,” said Mfolo Meanwhile, Botswana Football League chairperson, Nicholas Zakhem said BFA would on June 8 convene a meeting where all concerned shareholders would be duly informed of the decision taken to strip the BFL of the autonomy to run the leagues.
He said the decision was taken after BFA had engaged a five-man task team to investigate the issue and their report led to a resolution that was taken to relieve the BFL of its delegated powers.
Zakhem said the shareholders would then make a final decision on the fate of the BFL autonomy.
“It is not about punishing anyone, but rather all about safeguarding the name of the game and stabilising the situation,” said Zakhem.
He said when BFL was granted autonomy; one of the key components was privatisation of clubs adding that some clubs were yet to comply with all the necessary requirements of privatisation.
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