Babitseng calls for long term player development

Speaking during a football Pitso recently, Babitseng said having well-crafted strategies, assembling committees, opening offices, and building facilities while failing to develop better footballers is a recipe for disaster. The BFA president emphasised the urgent need for a clear, synchronized pathway that guided local talent from grassroots football through youth categories, into senior leagues, and ultimately into the national teams. He added that the structural overhaul must extend beyond players to encompass technical personnel.

While pitches and training facilities are vital, he said they only become valuable assets when actively utilised to nurture talent. He stressed the need to build facilities that players could use—facilities where children could dream, where clubs could train, and where quality football could be played. “When we build them, we must also ask who will maintain them, how they will be used, and how they will remain sustainable.

Development is not the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Development is what happens afterward,” he said. Addressing the financial bottlenecks plaguing the local game, Babitseng acknowledged that football requires money and was naturally capable of attracting substantial investment.

[paywall]

However, he warned that corporate funding would remain elusive if governance structures were weak. “We need sponsors, investors, commercial partners, broadcasters, and supporters who consume football, but we must understand something: money follows value,” he said. Sponsors, he noted, wanted stability, professionalism, visibility, an audience, and confidence that the organisation they were associating themselves with was properly governed. “So, if we want more money in Botswana football, we have to make Botswana football worth investing in,” he said.

[/paywall]