The third leg of the tournament was initially pencilled for Gaborone from May 26-30 but was postponed as BNSC felt the BVF had not complied with hosting guidelines.
This included obtaining permission to host and secure funding commitment from the commission. This meant there was no budget for the competition.
The postponement was also meant to allow the host country a chance to satisfy itself with preparations and be in a position to host a large number of entrants for the third leg.
BVF president, Tsoseletso Magang told Mmegi Sport that everything is now in place and they are ready to host the tournament. The new dates for the tournament are June 29 to July 4 at Marabou Rocks at Molapo Crossing. Over 40 beach volleyball teams are expected to converge in Gaborone from Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. “We are back on course. At least we are now in control and on top of things. Courts are done and we are finalising hosting logistics.
Our grant has been released by the BNSC and we are spending from it,” she said. Volleyball has received P700,000 for the 2022-2023 financial year despite being back to full activity. Magang said the grant has declined from the P1.4 million that volleyball received in the last financial year. She said last year was understandable because it was at the height of COVID-19. “I am not complaining because I came back to commercialise volleyball.
I am just going to work with that and push my plans to attract financial support and hopefully acquire assets for the sport to be independent. I want to give it a shot, totally,” Magang said.
She said at the moment, 24 men's and 19 women's teams have confirmed participation. She said the last two legs attracted about 10 men's and seven women's teams.
