• Players concerned by unfollowed schedule
• Code in financial constraints
TLOTLO KEBINAKGABO
A group of disgruntled Badminton national team players have come out of the woods to raise their concerns over their code’s unfollowed calendar of events.
The 2019 Botswana Badminton Association calendar of events seen by this publication stipulates that by now the association should have held the Botswana open on the 23rd to the 24th of February as well as sent a team to a international competition in Kampala, Uganda which was scheduled for the 21st to the 24th of February. Furthermore the association was supposed to conduct a training camp for senior national team players from the 2nd till the 8th of March but according to those in the know all mentioned competitions and training camps have not taken place.
“This year’s calendar of events have long been released but it has not been followed. We have not had any competition or training camp as scheduled and the most frustrating thing is that there is no formal communication from the association to explain what is happening,” said one of the national team players who opted to speak in anonymity.
Another player who spoke in anonymity stated the level of badminton in Botswana has been in decline for years now, “and limited competitions really worry us, we want to compete, what’s the use of training if we are not competing? For now I can say we are just playing the sport because we are passionate about it. We are basically playing it out of love.”
Reached for a comment in the matter, BBA spokesperson Barulaganye Ncube stated that the calendar of events witnessed by Gazette Sports is a draft. “ We have not released a final one as of yet, the one you saw is just a draft. I can assure you that the competitions will commence as soon as we are done with the calendar of events,” he said. “It’s not like we are not worried by our inactivity , no we are not happy but we are working on rectifying that.”
He went on to say that the association is crippled by financial constraints, “ and that is because our only financier is the sports commission of which i think our financial conditions are going to be better after the new financial year in April.”