23 Apr 2023

The newly launched FIFA Talent Development Scheme Project (TDSP) will enable the Botswana Football Association (BFA) to expose emerging talent to quality coaching and competitive environment.

BFA technical director, Tshepo Mphukuthi, said this at the TDSP launch in Gaborone recently.

Mphukuthi said the project would also create a pool of players to be selected for junior national teams and further build a strong base for competitive junior national teams.

“The identified players would then be channelled to Radisele and Mogoditshane centres of sport excellence with a possibility of expanding to other areas. Athletes would be training on daily basis with qualified coaches and they would be playing games every week,” he said adding that under 15 would fixture in Tswapong Region Under 17 Youth League.

He said the U-17 would be fixtured in Tswapong Region Division One while U-19 would fixture in the first division team.

For his part, BFA vice president, Masego Nchingane said despite launching two centres, expectations were that they would in future have centres around the country so that they gave all athletes an opportunity to realise their potential.

“We want to start exporting players so that they can come back and help government in its quest for economic transformation,” he said.

On one hand, consultant, Serame Letsoaka said FIFA had realised that the top countries in the world continued to open the gap and they used 1986 Mexico World Cup as a case study, which revealed that the same teams that were in Mexico still dominated to date.

“In the Italy World Cup in 1990, the same teams dominated and the same thing happened in USA in 1994 and in France in 1998.

In 2002 in Korea, the gap continued to increase. In 2006 in Germany it was same story, the same teams that you have seen in all world cups are the same teams over and over again,” he said.

Letsoaka said it was in 2018 in Russia where FIFA decided to have a serious conversation regarding talent development scheme.

“They wanted to know as to how other countries could catch up and FIFA then decided to come up with a project that will fast track the development of players,” he said.

Member of Parliament for Gaborone Central, Tumisang Mangwegape-Healy, termed the TDSP a rich and promising programme that would change the football landscape in Botswana.

“In the past, it was evident that when countries purposely engage in development there was an outcome,” he said.

He indicated that the Chappies Little League was another development programme that paid dividends in Botswana football, while the late Ben Koffie and his colleagues also took development to another level.

However, Healy, who is also parliamentary committee chairperson on youth, sport and culture, expressed concern about the status of the field in Mogoditshane, where the project would be based.
 

“I saw the field and the way it was, we would not produce what we want at the end of the day,” he said. ENDS