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Zebras’ gravy train short-lived?

National team players have started living like the national icons thanks to numeration packages recently initiated by the President Ian Khama, but the gravy train could come to a halt anytime soon. Fears remain that local football could soon be in doldrums as the huge incentives are being drawn from BFA’s funds already budgeted for other projects. The Gazette Sport can reveal that after the Zebras game with Madagascar, the players received P10 000 each in back pays, and some have been seen driving cars for the first time. President Khama’s initiatives now see the Botswana National Sports Council (BNSC) contributing extra P3500 as appearance fees towards the Zebras players after a directive to do so was issued by the president. The P3500 from the BNSC, when combined with the Zebras sponsor, Orange’s P2000 appearance fees, give each Zebras player a whopping P5500 in appearances.  The  last four  games against Ivory coast(home , and away), Madagascar, and Mozambique, for instance, have earned each squad member P22000 in appearance fees.The  BNSC is also paying each Zebras player  extra P300 a day on camp, and the  total daily allowance for a Zebras player , combined with the P100 that the BFA pays, is now P400 a day. A squad of 25 players has been in camp over the last two weeks as coach Stan Tshosane seeks to broaden his pool. After only two weeks, each Zebras player has already netted over P5600 in allowances alone. However the paradise could soon come to a halt as all the money is being drawn from the Botswana Football Association (BFA)’s allocation from the BNSC. The BNSC CEO Kitso Kemoeng said when asked to comment on the latest incentive scheme, “If there are resources, we need to incentify our athletes as much as we can. To the best of my knowledge we do not have the resources. We are working with the Government to see what  we can do…we have always made a case for our athletes to be rewarded but H.E also had his own initiative, so I cannot say we influenced his decision.” Kemoeng also added that in their last budget proposal they were conscious of the need to increase athletes’ incentives. Kemoeng further said the BNSC is currently making a joint effort with the Ministry of Youth Sport and Culture to source funds from the Government which would be used to service the project (national teams’ incentives). Kemoeng added that the recently improved incentives are drawn from the affiliates' allocation but refused to say how far could that impact on affiliates’ development projects, saying that question is best tackled by the affiliates themselves. However the BFA CEO Tosh Kgotlele told Gazette Sport the new incentive scheme will affect their development programs adversely, especially that the money is being drawn from the BFA’s BNSC allocation. Kgotlele said since the new incentives were not budgeted for, the BFA will submit their new expenditure to the BNSC to submit it to the Government for supplementary funding. “We are also in the process of reviewing the incentive scheme so that it does not look like there are two incentive schemes for the national team, one from H.E and the other from the BFA. We have to come up with a holistic approach and agree a figure for national teams. We hope to achieve that. As it is this incentives are too much for us, considering our budget allocation”, said Kgotlele.

 

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