Africa-Press – Lesotho. IT is an unavoidable fact that the Lesotho representative teams in all sporting codes have been a very big disappointment. The blame pertaining to the paradoxical performances cannot only be blamed on the Lesotho Football Association when all other codes too are not winning any significant accolades internationally.
Yes, I am the first to admit that the organisation I have been with has been experiencing tough results and we have observed that it wouldn’t be long before it begins to rear its ugly head to the anger of the football fraternity.
But when did these unpleasant phenomena start? Those who have followed Lesotho sport for the past decade will recall that I have been very vocal about the state of Lesotho sport.
I have raised the subject in the Lesotho Sport and Recreation Commission and the Lesotho National Olympic Committee Annual General Meetings. I did so even when I realised that those in charge were beginning to be annoyed by the facts that I presented to them in those fora. Let me share what I have raised in at least two AGMs all these years.
I have brought to the attention of the two national sports controlling bodies that for as long as the sport fraternity has allowed those who operate from the 3rd Floor at the Post Office building to manipulate the Elective AGMs to bestow stooges, this would be the kind of product we would ultimately have to live with, a nation in a downward spiral in terms of participation of our national teams in international sporting events.
The practice of voting for unfit persons to powerful positions in exchange for inclusion of certain bureaucrats in trips to international events has effectively compromised the quality of leadership that the sporting fraternity requires.
One only needs to look at the composition of the national executives of sporting bodies. You will see that these bodies are composed of those sport codes that are either not existing in all districts or by representatives of codes that hardly ever have any sporting activities in a year.
Can we really say this is a winning set-up? The other hindrance to sport development is the level or lack of government and political will towards sport. Let’s start with the composition of Cabinet and designation of Ministers responsible for sports and recreation.
Since the return to democratic rule in 1993, with the exception of a few Ministers notably Nkhono ‘Mathabiso Lepono and to a large extent Ntate Thesele ‘Maseribane other designations have failed to demonstrate dedication, devotion and empathy for the sport and recreation fraternity.
Ironically, the two, and I say this with utmost respect were the least academically exposed Ministers who fortunately had Principal Secretaries in the persons of Makalo Theko and Dr Majara Molapo respectively.
Their involvement and support to the sport and recreation fraternity were quite good. Without appearing to be harsh with the other Ministers and Principal Secretaries, unfortunately, they have not lived up to the pedigree of the two.
My point is that, it appears that when the Lesotho’s Prime Ministers designate Ministers of Sport, they chose those cadres who are not inspirational nor influential within their parties.
Some of the incumbent ministers have used their ministerial portfolios to pursue either personal agendas quite contrary to the one that the sport fraternity were expecting. It is common cause that some Ministers have come into the fraternity and immediately engaged in battles of sorts with the sports leaders.
Whether they were ill-informed during the inductions or theirs were instructions from their political party leaders, the effect of these battles have resulted in sour relations between the national sport federations and the sports ministry for the tenure of such Ministers to the detriment of the sport and recreation fraternity.
Moving forward, it is sad that the sport and recreation fraternity have to live with probably the wrong designations. And when the operationalisation of the national federations has to come into force, the same Ministry of Sport becomes a hindrance.
Yes, having served in the Government and in the same Ministry in the early 2000s, I am fully aware of the bureaucratic nature of how government conducts business. Things take forever to be done, more especially if the officials of Government don’t have direct benefits to be derived from the activities.
It is common cause that with Government in spite of them knowing ages before the activities are held, it has never been in Government’s nature to provide resources on time to the sport fraternity, to the extent that national teams have found themselves having to travel without team merchandise and such merchandise having to be sent by courier to the team’s bases.
Talking about government sponsored team preparations one would believe that we have just been inducted into sport. Ask any Government-sponsored team management, they will tell you that their teams start preparing for international games and tournaments just days prior to departure.
This is very traumatic to the athletes. That is in addition to the very sub-standard sport facilities. In 2023, the country still doesn’t have facilities of international standards yet the national parliament on an annual basis apportions monies to the Sports Ministry to run sports.
Back in the days when I was in high school, on Wednesdays we knew that we would have an afternoon fulfilling the adage that ‘All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy’ where we would engage in one sport or another. Then, many a high school student would over the weekend play for teams that competed in the top football leagues in the country.
The likes of Likhetho ‘Microwave’ Mokhathi, the late Litšitso ‘House on Fire’ Khali, Mofihli ‘Çhepa’ Makoele, Tlalinyane Khomari and a whole lot of others played for your Arsenals, Ambassador’s etc, while still in high school and some even represented the country in international competitions as high school students.
They would train at their school facilities. Do we have school sport facilities in this era? I mean in 2023? The answer lies in you and your sport experiences.
Without government assistance to sport especially in a typical Third World country like Lesotho, chances are high that the nation will forever be enemies with the citizenry due to this dreary international performances by the national teams.
Every Honourable Minister designated to sport when the cameras and lights roll spews rhetoric of professionalising sport and if they were to be asked how, surely, they would suddenly go limp in their rhetoric.
Many go about lecturing us, and I am probably the last to be lectured on football by someone who has never engaged in sport before but they do it nonetheless, thanks to Google they will go on and on speaking about Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Barcelona, Real Madrid etc and how they do business forgetting that the environments are not the same at all.
Very few even know that the sudden resurrection of the Saudi Arabian top league is as a result of the Saudi Government working to position their Kingdom as a football giant.
What is our government working towards regarding sport? Governments are in nature a reflection of the society and so are national sport federations. They reflect the will of the sporting fraternities through the mirror of representative democracies.
So we have a sports ministry that harbours dissidents who have fallen out with national sporting federations. The ideal is that our national federations should be independent and that the Government’s sole role is to provide an enabling environment by way of enacting policy and providing resources, material, infrastructural, technical or otherwise.
In Lesotho this is not to be, dissidents alongside the Sports Ministry have concerted their objectives towards causing mayhem for national federation to stop them from achieving their mandates.
So how is sport expected to thrive under such appalling environments as we in sport are expected to deliver medallions and trophies when there has been nothing coming into sport from Government? Just the other week the government communicated to national federations that they will henceforth receive subventions of M40 000. Oh yes 40stena per annum.
What are sport associations expected to do with M40k? This happens at a time when Lesotho national teams are competing against countries, and many of them Third World countries whose governments charter planes for their teams when they travel, construct requisite facilities and above all demonstrate a great level of WILL to the betterment of sport in their own countries unlike the country I call my own. I may have been hard, but the truth that is based on substantial facts is always going to be hard.
https://www.thepost.co.ls/insight/why-sport-is-in-the-doldrums/
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