LETLHOGILE MPUANG
Botswana Basketball Association (BBA) has revealed their plans of erecting the association’s own playing facility as they look to tackle the lack of facilities that has haunted the sport locally over the years. Basketball in Botswana has been one of the most hit sporting codes by the lack of facilities. The association has over the years relayed on rented facilities for the staging of local games, which has proved into a bottleneck in the growth of the local game. However, this could soon turn into a thing of the past after the association approached the local sports motherbody, Botswana National Sports Commission (BNSC) over plans of setting up their very own playing facilities.
This was revealed by BBA Public Relations Officer (PRO) Thabang Maranyane in a recent interview with this publication. “One of the biggest challenges we facing as Basketball in the country is the lack of facilities, we as the Executive Committee have been in talks with a number of people to try and address this challenge. We have been in talks with the BNSC and have informed them about our plans to build our own facility,we have also been talking with local authorities over opening up some of their facilities for basketball,” Maranyane told Gazette Sport.
“In our plan of setting up our own facility, we currently have a plot just behind the BNSC and we obviously going to need funds and that is the discussion we have been having with the BNSC. At the moment we are still talking with them over issues of title deeds, and honestly the talks are still at an initial stage. We are also still trying to ask how much we would need for such a project, what is needed and how much is the value of the plot. We will then now begin the process of finding an investor, whose willing to invest in such a project. “We believe the BNSC will have no problems with this and we are very positive that they will give us the green light to undertake this project. ,” said the PRO.
In conclusion he said the they were also in talks with the Gaborone City Council over the use of the Tsholofelo playing park. He says should the council approve their request it would go a long into creating interest from members of the community and add to the growth and popularity of the sport. Meanwhile,the BBA held the U18 3×3 Young Lions Tournament finals in Gaborone.
The finals featured winners from 6 regions mainly South East, Kgalagadi, Central, North East, South Central and Ngamiland. Maranyane said the tournament was a success further adding that local coaches who attend the games were impressed with some of the display that was on show at the tournament.
“The tournament went really well, from a BBA perspective it even surpassed our expectations. We had an increased number of teams this year and also more players compared to last year. The tournament appears to be growing every year which is a positive for us as the BBA,” reiterated the PRO.
“We had our national team coach and other local coaches also at the tournament, they were very impressed with the young talent they saw and believe that they need to be closely monitored as they have the potential of becoming good national team players for the country,” ended Maranyane.