Botswana has always been part of the tournament since its infancy stage when it was still a tri-nations competition. The BONA president, Onkemetse Mpudi, is a concerned person as the association is struggling with funding. She told MmegiSport that they needed P500, 000 for the trip, yet for 2024-2025 they received only a P300, 000 grant from the Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC). “Normally the tournament is held in December but this year it will be held in the first week of September. The plan was that Netball Singapore would pay for our stay that side and we (BONA) had to take care of flight tickets and players' allowances. Our budget stood at around P500, 000," she said. "Pulling out of this tournament is a drawback because the less international games we play, we are unable to improve our world rankings because the Singapore Six Nations Cup is a World Netball-sanctioned event.
Teams are going to use it to improve their world rankings and we are missing out,” Mpudi added. She said moving forward, the intention is to initiate a Tri-Nations Cup with countries like Namibia and Zimbabwe, to try and score some points that might improve rankings. Botswana is currently ranked number 22 in the world out of 24 events. Zambia is ranked number 16 out of 31 events, Namibia is in position 20 from 36 events, Malawi is in position seven from 47 matches, and SPAR Proteas are in position five after playing 57 matches. “We are in a tough situation, especially for someone like me who got into office at a time when the association has a zero balance in the account. That is even more frustrating. When we got into office, we found that there were some financial deals that were already in place; we could not tamper with them. Right now non-institutional teams are complaining of lack of funds ahead of the upcoming LUCARA Netball League finals,” she said.
Mpudi explained that unlike other National Sport Associations (NSA) like volleyball, netball does not allocate grants to its affiliates. She said the grant that BONA receives from the BNSC is too little and they do not even know where to start with the money. “You cannot even channel it all to development although it is key. There is administration and competitions. We are in trouble,” she said. Meanwhile, one of the biggest clubs in the Northern Zone, TASC has called for assistance in order to travel to Orapa for the league finals set for this weekend. The side qualified for the LUCARA League Top 8 after finishing at the top of the log in the north. The club chairperson, Boitumelo Gabaseme, said they have 16 players and each player requires transport to travel from Francistown to Orapa and back.
They also need meals for four days. “We have taken our plea for help to social media channels, maybe some netball supporters and well-wishers will come on board and assist us. Assistance can be directed to individual players or it can come to the club,” she said. Gabaseme said the club fell into tough times after the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) withdrew sponsorship in 2018. Before the decision, TASC was assisted with transport, accommodation, and food. She said after the departure of BDF, they have been using funds from tournaments but now their account is empty due to the absence of activities. She said now it is difficult to assemble a team due to lack of funds. She said as a result of their difficulties, they groom players only for financially stable teams and recruit them. “We are now contributing money from our pockets to keep the team going; we do not have anything. This is just for the sake of keeping the name of the team alive. One of the players that we lost is Cheludo David. She could not stick around under such conditions. She was our key player. We do not have lots of tall players in this country. I identified her from basketball, introduced her to netball, and she was part of the Botswana Games team,” Gabaseme said.
