BFA must come clear on regulation of academies

Mqondisi Dube | Monday March 13, 2023 16:00

The statement was, without a doubt, directed at Ookeditse Malesu who recently set up a football academy. Some read malice from the BFA statement while others felt the move was justified.

Aside from the wording of the statement, which sounded too personal and petty, there were some important takeaways. Football academies should be regulated, period.

It should not be about individuals but a useful rule of the thumb. Nothing personal. BFA, however, turned the statement into a pettiness contest and won overwhelmingly in that department.

The statement could have been worded better with a more professional tone. The message was therefore lost as a result of what some perceived to be a personal vendetta against Malesu, who has been in the BFA system before and fell out of favour with the current administration. However, professional matters should not be about personalities.

I am not privy to details regarding the registration of Malesu’s and other football academies, but if there are no clear guidelines and regulations, that will be unfortunate. Academies are like football’s curriculum and there should be uniformity and conformity in the manner these are established and run. In as much as academic institutions are accredited by the Botswana Qualifications Authority, the same should apply to football academies to ensure the young players enroll with a legitimate organisation, and not just a fly-by-night money-making scheme. Regulation across sectors is meant to certify that the quality of the product meets the required standards.

That is why products entering the market should be subjected to a standards test by the Botswana Bureau of Standards (BOBS). Academies offer a business opportunity for those who run them while young talent benefits from their presence. But this does not mean that their running should be haphazard. The BFA, as the body entrusted by the world governing body, FIFA, to run the affairs of football in the country, will be better placed to put in place guidelines regulating the registration and running of academies.

The Uganda Football Association has one of the most progressive documents regulating the operation of academies. It is an unambiguous blue print which every person interested in registering an academy, can copy. The BFA statement would have carried the missing expected decorum by referencing the local laws regulating academies.

It is the reason why some felt it was just ‘dintontokwane’ yet the press statement was addressing an issue of importance. It was easy to pass it as petty talk, but lessons come out of every situation. Now it will be up to the BFA to come up with a comprehensive document, not just a one line incorporation into its laws of the game, on the regulation of academies.

As a starting point, the impressive Uganda document is available on this link; https://www.fufa.co.ug/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Academy-Rules_23072020.pdf and can serve as a launching pad for the development of a local document regulating the operations of academies. Apologies to the BFA if they already have their own document on regulating academies, but a quick search did not yield anything. The administrators of the game can draw lessons from the mushrooming of football academies to not only come up with regulations, but see how they can infuse this into a comprehensive development strategy.

The academies will then be key to this development strategy, which will address the grey areas presented by the ‘Malesu incident.’