Africa-Press – Lesotho. Since the 2000, every Minister who has been designated to the Sports and Recreation Ministry has come into office with a promise to turn sport into a professional industry.
All of them. I have had serious concerns about the promises which have always been premised on more rhetoric than an understanding of the realities of sport.
For instance, for sport to become an industry, sport needs resources. There needs to be facilities, something that hardly exists in Lesotho. The action on the ground simply does not match the rhetoric.
There needs to be political will and without political will all other things become political statements. I want to be a maverick and state facts to the dismay of all those who pour scorn unto local sports administrators.
Are our critics aware that we have 10 districts and 80 constituencies? How much do these 10 district administrations get every financial year to run sport and or invest in sports infrastructure? How much is allocated to each of the 80 local government or constituencies?
As you ostracise sports administrators, have you for once compared our Kingdom and a typical township in our neighbouring country South Africa? As one drives into Mangaung and have just passed Thaba-Nchu, you see a number of sporting facilities.
Have you ever listed how many? Compared to Lesotho, how many sporting facilities does Mangaung have? Do we still want to blame the sport administrators? What can they do under such circumstances?
What can a nation whose many sports ministers have promised so much but surprisingly did so little to ensure sport is professionalized and that Lesotho has adequate and world-class facilities achieve?
What can the sports critics say when sport is almost abolished in schools by successive governments as they play musical chairs? Years gone by, about 40 odd years ago when one was still a student, sport was big at school. I had options and exercised them. I played volleyball and football at CKHS.
Ever wondered why Rovers and Fokothi qualified for the CAF Champions League then? Wasn’t it as a result of quality players coming out of the school sport system? The same can be said about volleyball, netball and other sports. Why is this not happening today?
What can a country whose government allocates only M6 million per financial year to run sport achieve? This considering that there are over 35 sporting codes and the same government is able to plough M30 million to fund over 60 registered political parties?
This is happening at a time when some sporting codes never received a cent of the M6 million that was allocated to sport. Even the Lesotho Sports and Recreation Council does not get enough money to pay its staff and other operational costs.
Our opponents on the sporting field are well funded by their own governments. Sport is taken seriously elsewhere. I recall the Lesotho Football Association (LeFA) being ridiculed after the national team was given a lift back home on a chartered plane, which was chartered by our opponents’ government.
Haeso Lesotho where our teams would rather drive as far as Malawi when Zambia opts to charter a plane for its team to Johannesburg. I mean the trip between Ndola, Zambia, and Johannesburg falls right within the trip between Maseru and Blantyre.
The government is able to get away with this because they have successfully managed to drive a wedge amongst the population. We are a very angry nation and this attribute has been exploited by politicians as they continue to sow seeds of division amongst the people of Lesotho to their advantage.
I know some will say not enough is being done by local sport administrators to raise sponsorship. I ask: who has raised millions in sponsorship in Lesotho to support sport? Who? When? Where? How much? For which sport code? You need to understand the state of the local economy to support counter arguments.
In its current form, the economy is unable to provide millions for sport, not at this time and not in the very near future. I challenge anyone to dispute my argument with facts. I also challenge arguments directed at the subject not the person. Shalom!
https://www.thepost.co.ls/insight/talking-sport-politics/
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