Masters must speak out or go

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Botswana Football Association (BFA) CEO Keith Masters is disturbingly quiet. I have observed with great pain as to why Masters has not stood up and shown leadership, ambition or vision to uproot us from this football misery. Botswana football in its entirety is in a murky quagmire.  It is not only Masters’ silence that prompts my concern. We were told that Masters was very experienced and competent in football administration- and I was sold! Masters is an expatriate employee and is expected to bring special skills to Botswana and that is how Home Affairs grants all expatriates work permits. I am deeply worried because Masters sits in a very privileged position, earns lots money, and has a powerful title to change things  but  the BFA’s problems continue to get worse by the day.

 
Masters has not shown remorse for Zebras pathetic display over the year while under him. He has not uttered a single word regarding the Zebras failure to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, 2014 CHAN in South Africa and for failing to do reasonably well in the COSAFA cup held in Zambia in June. Our referees remain the most miserable in the region and our youth national teams are nonexistent. The BFA runs without a Technical Director but it is business as usual for Masters. Our foreign based players continue to pay for their own flights while coming for Zebras duty and he has not acted. The Zebras continue to be pathetic, and the team is now moribund since there are no games to play. Despite his alleged experience, he has failed to get Zebras a single European friendly. Simply put, he has not shown any exceptional expatriate skills thus far and the BFA fails to make money.

 
There must be a reason why we had to go to England for a CEO. Under Masters, the BFA has been reduced to a big theatre; the BMC saga and now the Notwane FC crisis-there clearly has not been any guidance.
I was excited when Masters was appointed because I had been worried about rotating the same old people we know at the BFA. I write this because I feel it is unfair of an expatriate in such a powerful position to sleep on the job.

 

Masters has remained quiet despite the myriad problems we have as a football nation. I do not think he has shown a desire or competence to change things.The CEO has not furnished us with reasons as to why Stanley Tshosane ‘failed’ because one cannot look at Tshosane’s failure in the three objectives set for him in isolation. Masters is different from BFA President Tebogo Sebego in that, he draws a big monthly salary from the BFA while Sebego does not.  He is paid by you, the tax payer and therefore you have a locus standi to ask him why he is still there, and if he is really good enough to stay on. Sebego himself will answer to the Congress why he must be re-elected as President of the BFA and that time will come and that is why we must deal with Masters now.

 
My fear about Masters is that he does not come across as a man who has an opinion, and if he does, he does not share it. It is unprecedented for a CEO of a soccer authority to keep quiet when he has failed to achieve none of the three objectives set. If indeed the BFA is in crisis, then we should look at the man running the BFA. I expected fantastic ideas from Masters and even if they fail to be implemented, he must show us why he was head hunted all the way from England.