Da Costa Pleads for more foreigners in teams
Kabelo Boranabi | Monday August 26, 2019 11:53
Da Costa argued that the regulation crippled local teams’ chances of making an impact in the Confederation of African Football (CAF) club competitions.
Addressing the media on Friday ahead of his side’s CAF Confederations Cup preliminary round second leg clash against Bolton City Youth Club, the Portuguese said on the continental arena, local teams are disadvantaged. Other countries have a higher number of foreign players contingent in their teams.
“We were playing a Mauritius team that has six or seven Nigerian players. I was even confused whether we were in Nigeria or Mauritius. So I would like to plead with our country, why do we allow three players to play in the championship while other countries allow more?
It is not going to handicap the local players but will make local players develop faster by training with those players,” da Costa said.
Galaxy carried a 3-1 defeat from the first leg and did battle with their counterparts on Sunday afternoon at the Lobatse Sports Complex. Botswana’s other representative in the CAF club competition, Township Rollers was knocked out of the CAF by Tanzania’s Young Africans.
However the team’s head coach, Tomas Trucha did not share the same sentiments as da Costa as he said it is up to the technical teams to make full use of what they have. “There are the rules. We cannot have all players in the team. It is my duty as coach to make the decisions on what I have,” Trucha said on Saturday following his team’s 1-0 loss to Yanga.
In 2016, the Botswana Football Association did not give special treatment to Rollers and Orapa United ahead of their participation in the continental tournaments despite their congested schedule.
Local teams are required to register a maximum of 25 players with an extra five being Under-20 players for the local competitions whilst CAF requests a maximum of 30 players.