27 Oct 2022

Women  football should be nurtured, preserved and given maximum support.

The newly elected national women’s football committee chairperson, Keeng Mosinyi, said in an interview that the good performance by senior team at the Women Africa Cup of Nations had drawn attention to women football.

She, however, said she was worried that women football was dominant in some areas of the southern region.

Therefore, her committee would make sure all the regions have running teams that could compete nationally.

Furthermore, she said her desire was to see the girl-child playing football at a younger age, adding t she was disappointed recently during the Bonnita Youth Cup where girls were not represented because they did not have under 15 and under 17 teams across the country.

She said that alone propelled her to put grassroots development at the pinnacle of her to–do-list.

“Remember we have to develop so that we feed our national teams. That way Botswana can compete at the international stage. Look, we have a potential to compete not to participate, the Mares have proved that, now imagine if we had proper development,” she said. Mosinyi said the senior team had raised the bar and the expectation was that the new leadership should not ‘drop the ball’, adding stakeholders would have to map a way forward that would take the women’s football forward.

“Another area of concern is that the national team is only made up of Gaborone-based players, yet we have talent in all the regions, the question now is that how much support do we give to the coach to scout players across the country,” she said.

Mosinyi also opined that the Mares needed a permanent coach who could also traverse around the country searching for players.

She was also worried that women’s football in coaching department and administration side was mainly dominated by men, something which she said needed to be discussed.

“We need men, they started this game, but women should stand up and be counted, we need them in the structurs,” she said. Ends