As usual, football connived to pollute the sport atmosphere, with the Onkarabile Ratanang saga the dominant, unwanted distraction.
The matter is still not over after the Botswana Football League (BFL) decided to appeal the ruling, which saw Township Rollers fined P15,000 for the improper registration of Ratanang.
While the case has been presented as a genuine protest against a transgression, there have been countless conspiracy theories that the issue runs deeper and is more about power and the control of local football.
At the end of the day, football has emerged badly bruised, as it has on countless occasions. Despite its mass appeal, football has failed to dust off the usual concerns around its overall administration.
Football appears to have befriended controversy and the two are now inseparable. In recent weeks, sport in general has been searching for a lift, particularly after the disappointment of the World Championships in Oregon, the United States of America where the athletics team returned empty handed.
It has not been a great Commonwealth Games for Botswana in comparison to the last outing in the Gold Coast in 2018. Botswana won five medals in Australia, but the going has been tough in Birmingham, with only one medal, a bronze at press time.
As such, a hero had to emerge and wash away the sour taste. Up stepped one superhero, Letsile to have a nation believing again. Letsile’s record breaking feat in far flung Cali, Columbia, proved to be the right filter which had the blue, black and white nation breathing cleaner air again. His runs were sufficient to firmly introduce him to the world and force pundits into comparisons with the great Usain Bolt.
Letsile gave Botswana unlimited mileage in his just more than 30 seconds of running in Oregon and Cali. This included the record breaking 9.94 in the US, the 10.00 which set the championship record in Colombia.
The icing on the cake was the 9.91 run, which set a new mark for the Under-20 100m. Letsile has made Botswana marketers’ job much easier, with the 19-year-old emerging as arguably the best athletics product to come out of BW since independence 56 years ago. Now with the whole world ahead of him, Letsile would be hard pressed to keep his feet firmly on the ground (except when he is running, of course).
Indiscipline has been the downfall of many talented athletes and it will be remiss of the authorities if this is not emphasised. Talent alone is insufficient, it has to be infused with discipline to give a winning formula. Letsile is figuratively and literally on the right track and the nation will not want to see him veer off the rails.
