A divided BFA NEC won't get us anywhere

Thuso Palai | Thursday October 17, 2013 14:16

What happened in the past few months leaves a bitter and sour taste in the mouth and it is a case of some NEC members being reckless and outright irresponsible.

Information gathered is that most of the NEC members do not attend scheduled meetings and most issues cannot be discussed and concluded.

This then makes it rather impossible or quite cumbersome for decisions to be made. In other instances, knee jerk decisions are made. Well; we all know that the NEC members who went to Durban for our game against RSA met immediately after the game and the consensus was to fire Stan Tshosane, and immediately thereafter, before all was settled, someone within the NEC got excited and went on and shared the news with friends and media. Imagine; how can we then trust the NEC members if they cannot hold on to sensitive information.

What happened afterwards was just chaos, with the BFA President running around doing some crisis management. Obviously if the BFA were to fire Tshosane, they would have to follow the right channels and ensure that they have covered all their bases. But before they do; someone within the Board gets the information out before it is officialised. Talk about principles.  

The BFA NEC is the Botswana Football Association Board of Governors and they should keep to and uphold some corporate governance standards. As it is right now; I don’t think that is happening. Unilateral decisions are being made, sometimes without even the knowledge of the NEC members who matter the most.

I really wonder how a decision can be made to suspend BMC Fc for a whole year when the President, VP – Administration and the Legal Advisor are not present in a meeting that takes that decision.

The three are very key, and have to be present when such decisions, of such a magnitude are taken. I was left dumbfounded when I found out that BF President was in Switzerland when the decision was made and he only got to know of BMC’s expulsion through social media. Imagine.

Well; Sebego might have his flaws and shortcomings but some people are really making the situation worse. He had to come back and reverse the decision and do some crisis management. Same as when someone a few months ago leaked information that Stan Tshosane was to be fired and replaced with Major David Bright.

Before that information was officialised and routed through the right channels, someone leaked it and Sebego had to back track and deny that a decision was made already. If that is the modus operandi at the BFA Board, then we are in trouble.

Although, they will deny it, it is quite evident that there are cracks within the BFA NEC. Some are attributing this to the remnants of the Fani regime. There are conspiracy theories as to what is happening and some of them make sense.

There are those who say that some of the Fani remnants are out to sabotage Sebego to make his leadership look bad. Some are saying Sebego is an all-powerful leader who makes unilateral decisions and the other Friends of Football partners are now doubting his leadership, hence the somewhat rebellion and cracks.

These are all theories and yet to be proven. The fact of the matter is that there are deep cracks, and something needs to be done.  Or else we will forever be doing crisis management and watching NEC members duels instead of them concentrating on the  developing our football.

The Stan Tshosane sacking last week opened yet another can of worms. Now the BFA CEO is having a war of words with the VP – Technical. That should not be the case. If they have differences why not settle them within their office and not play it out in public. This makes us lose even more confidence in the association.

We ask ourselves; how can we trust them to lead and develop our football when they can’t even manage themselves and how they work together. And worst of all have publicized public spats.

From recent events, it is quite evident that there are some cracks in the BFA, and to some extent, all is not well. That has to be nipped in the bud as soon as is possible, lest we run the risk of an Association that is forever at war with itself and is always firefighting, instead of focusing on more important issues.