Africa-Press – Lesotho. Local softball players from all the corners of country are engaged in a month-long softball tournament to celebrate the Lesotho’s 51st Independence this year.
The tournament commenced on Sunday the 7th October at Morija and Mafeteng, and it will run throughout the month under the supervision of Lesotho Baseball and Softball Association (LBSA).
LBSA public relations officer, Lisema Mapetla told Informative Sport that this year they decided to spend a month celebrating the independence to popularize the sport and attract sponsors.
According to Mapetla, the tournament is divided into two divisions – the Women Softball Independence and Men Softball Independence – but he clarified that the women’s tournament was played on the 4th October at Ha Mabote, Maseru, while the semi-final and final would be played in February next year.
“For the men’s tournament, we will play during each and every weekend until the end of October and we are hoping to take this tournament to different places in order to make the nation feel it,” said Mapetla.
Apart from just popularizing the sport, attracting sponsors and celebrating the independence, Mapetla disclosed that the tournament will help the association spot out teams which are ready to be registered with the association and that will be determined by teams’ performance.
Just like in other sports in the country, lack of funds and sponsors is the major threat to the growth of softball in Lesotho. Therefore Mapetla pointed that the tournament could boost some of teams’ financial status.
“As the tournament is going on, we are going to give host teams an opportunity to bring stock of their own choice to sell at the games to make their own collections.
“We hope our local clubs will learn from this proposed initiative that they need to be financially independent by finding their own source of funds,” added Mapetla.
Baseball and softball are classified among less popular sports in the country but Mapetla promised that had revised the way the LBSA was administrating the sport and revealed that they had discovered that their failure to involve all the related stakeholders and even available resources like media in pushing their mandate to help the sport grow.
Meanwhile, Mapetla also disclosed that in December this year the association is going to introduce another series of games aimed at boosting baseball development in the country and even to make it known country wide, especially in schools.
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