BONA Officials Appointed to Netball World Cup Committees

  • Both Raditladi-Nkgakile and Maplanka say the honour goes to BONA
  • They are in key roles of safekeeping and champion data respectively

GAZETTE REPORTER

The president of Botswana Netball Association (BONA) Malebo Raditladi-Nkgakile and the organisation’s secretary general Kelebogile Maplanka have been appointed to various committees of the highly-anticipated World Netball Cup that is slated for Cape Town, South Africa from 28 July to 6 August 2023.

This comes after the two worked closely with netball’s continental body Africa Netball and organisers of the first-ever world netball showpiece to be held on African soil in the history of the sport.

 

Welfare of players
Raditladi-Nkgakile has been appointed as Welfare and Safe Guarding Manager of the World Netball Cup where she is tasked with overseeing the general welfare of players and officials and ensuring that all necessary steps are taken to protect everyone around the event.

She is a Certified International Olympic Committee (IOC) safeguarding member and has assisted at different World, Regional and Continental events as a safeguarding Manager. The president of BONA commenced her assignment at the ongoing Quad Series in Cape Town.

In a recent interview with Gazette Sports, Raditladi-Nkgakile said BONA was honoured to have representatives appointed to serve at the highest netball competition in the world. “I have been appointed to lead the safeguarding department like at the just-ended Malawi Games,” she explained.

 

Emotional abuse
“I will be training those involved in the games about issues of safeguarding, including the secretariat, LOC, the athletes, the officials, the volunteers, and all local services like the medical team, the media and the safety and security.

“There is a lot of emotional abuse and harassment in events. By educating those involved, they become aware that they have the right to be and that no favours should be made at the expense of others or even their own integrity and well-being.
“There is a lot of match fixing at these kinds of games and no sport is immune from that, hence we are targeting all sporting codes. The issues of anti-doping and mental health to watch out for, especially after the COVID-19 lockdowns.”

 

Equal treatment
She added that she will also be advising on issues of following procedure, especially for equal treatment in order to avoid corruption in events. “I hope sharing these with the South African community will add value in the final preparations of the World Cup,” Raditladi-Nkgakile said.

“It means a lot that I have been called upon to assist. That means there is some impact from what I am doing around the world on issues of safeguarding. I thank the NWC 2023 LOC, NSA, and SASCOC for picking me to be the one leading this department.
“I will continue to hoist my country’s flag high and all these organisations flags wherever I am needed.”

Maplanka has also been appointed to the Netball World Cup 2023 Office as one of the champion data officials for the 2023 Quad series. Champion Data is the official statistical programme that will be used at the 2023 Netball World Cup. She underwent champion data training during the World Netball Cup qualifiers in Pretoria, South Africa in Augus last year.

Maplanka told Gazette Sports that BONA is delighted to have a representative in this capacity, saying champion data training will be cascaded to BONA structures in order for BONA to keep abreast of new developments in the world of netball.

 

Appointed on merit
“I am very honoured and excited to serve in this role, more so that during our time as players we didn’t have technical officials,” she noted. “But as netball grew, such things were introduced and I am happy to be a part of them.

The president of Africa Netball, who also leads Netball South Africa, Cecilia Molokwane, said the two were appointed on merit as they have been working tirelessly to contribute to the success of the World Cup. “The World Cup is not only for South Africans but it is for all of us as Africans,” she said.

“We have to work as a unit in order to deliver a very successful event. I am grateful for the support that we have been getting from other African nations like Botswana despite the fact that they did not qualify for the showpiece.”