On Wednesday, Namibia announced its shock withdrawal from the joint bid which became known as BONA 2027. The neighbouring country cited budgetary constraints and competing priorities.
Plans to bid for the 2017 AFCON received collective support from members of the public and various stakeholders. It was even widely predicted that Botswana and Namibia stood a good chance of winning the rights to host the 2027 tournament as CAF has been leaning more towards joint bids in recent years.
Immediately after the announcement, the two countries mobilised a pre-bid committee, which was later transformed into a fully-fledged bid committee led by respected local sports administrator, Ashford Mamelodi.
The creation of the bid committee elicited enthusiasm from citizens of both nations. It showed a willingness to ensure that the bid become a success. There was political will from both ends of the divide.
Given the public posture of Namibian and Botswana government officials, to an outsider, there were no suggestions that the bid will collapse or hit a dead end. On the contrary, those who are familiar with the dynamics of hosting a significant sporting event never gave BONA 2027 any prospect of success.
Their position was not on account of the strength of other countries interested in bidding for the same tournament. Critics of the BONA bid strongly argued that it was destined to fail before taking shape due to the hasty approach by Botswana and Namibia.
For starters, Botswana and Namibia do not have facilities that they could effortlessly work on or upgrade to meet the hosting standards set by CAF. All facilities needed intense upgrading.
At some point, both countries did not have a facility that met CAF standards.
Readying the facilities to host AFCON would have further stretched the finances of the two countries. Botswana would have needed at least P10 billion while Namibia would have had to budget funds slightly above P4 billion. Given Namibia and Botswana’s fiscal pressure as well as competing priorities such as fighting unemployment, the two countries would have found it difficult to sanction a budget for the bid.
In addition, the two nations also have a poor history in terms of implementing huge infrastructure projects. They would have found it difficult to convince CAF that they would successfully execute huge infrastructure projects timely as per the deadline set by CAF.
For countries that have no bidding experience, Botswana and Namibia also applied a very passive approach when deciding if they should go for the 2027 AFCON bid or not.
Instead of right away appointing the facilities auditor who was going to give guidance as to whether to proceed with the bid or to abort at the earliest stage, the two countries took an abnormal route.
They appointed a committee which gobbled up some taxpayers’ money.
Had a facilities auditor been appointed to determine the viability of hosting the AFCON bid, the move would have avoided the creation of unnecessary expectations. It would also have saved the two governments from the sheer embarrassment because of abandoning the bid at the 11th hour.
It remains unclear if Botswana will go it alone but that will take moving mountains and crossing wide rivers.
At the time of going for publication, both the Minister of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture, Tumiso Rakgare and the leader of the bid committee, Mamelodi were cagey on Botswana’s next step.
Sources have said that Botswana cannot go at it alone given the fact that the deadline for the bid submission is next week. The deadline for countries to declare interest to host the 2027 tourney was yesterday. It is still unclear if Botswana has signed the document.
