30 Jan 2024

The 2023 Africa Cup of Nations currently ongoing in Cote d’Ivoire is reaching its peak and while the national team, The Zebras, failed to make the cut to the tournament, many Batswana were hoping to at least have a representation in officials, either centre referees or assistants.

However, that has also failed to materialise.

Botswana’s best bet was the tried and tested Joshua Bondo, but ‘The Sprinter’ as he is fondly known, retired recently after reaching the mandatory age of 45.

That left Botswana with no other notable bet.

Such lack of representation has equally concerned the local referees’ body.

In an interview, referees manager, Jonti Rasetsoga said like every Motswana, they were also concerned by the lack of local officials at major tournaments.

He said as the referees body, the issue worried them just like a parent would be concerned about their child failing to make it to tertiary school.

“As the referees body, we do not want our officials to only end up at local or regional level. We want them at international tournaments, even the World Cup. We are working round the clock to ensure that we graduate as many high calibre referees as possible to have a pool large enough in the FIFA panels,” he said.

Rasetsoga said at the moment they had  13 officials in the FIFA panel, being six referees and seven assistant referees.

He said being in the FIFA panel meant that they were being monitored and assessed by FIFA, which he said made them stand a good chance of progressing to the elite level where they would be eligible for major tournaments.

“Those 13 are the ones with a high chance of moving to Elite A, the very pool that FIFA and CAF chooses officials from.

We are hopeful because they are not far from that stage and what we only have to do is to make sure they stay at the highest level to boost their chances,” he said.

The referees boss said to ensure that, they had assigned mentors to them, most of whom were retired referees.

Rasetsoga said the FIFA level had three tier, being Young Talent, Elite B and Elite A.

He said at the moment, they were expecting about three officials to graduate to at least Elite B.

He said for them to groom more referees, they have roped in the Re Ba Bona Ha development programme.

“We have young referees at school whom we can only train in December during school vacations because we do not want to disrupt their school programme. We use most of them in the youth leagues and tournaments but we would have preferred to use them during school competitions, but unfortunately, those games are currently not running,” he said.

He said annually, they graduated about 150 such referees, but said with the advent of development centres at all their regions, they were hopeful that there would continuity in such a development initiative.

In that regard, Rasetsoga said they would remain hopeful that Botswana had an official at the 2027 AFCON, as he said it would require about two to three years to groom a high calibre referee.

“Referees for tournaments are selected well in advance to allow for constant monitoring, and as we speak now those for the next World Cup are already being trained,” he said.

Apart from development, Rasetsoga also said they would have to work on their retention strategy as most of the referees they trained are sometimes lost as they get employment elsewhere. ENDS