27 Mar 2025

The Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) will need over P20 million to prepare and host the World Athletics Relays next year.

“Hosting is very expensive and we have to ensure that everything goes by the book,” said BAA vice president, Oabona Theetso in an interview.

As such, he called on the private sector to come on board because government could not do it alone.

Already, he said the University of Botswana had allowed them to use their facility as a warm up track, but regretted that they did not have a budget to refurnish it.

He said they would need around P8 million to resurface the track adding that expectations were that the UB would meet them halfway.

Also, he said they would need to train journalists on reporting track and field events, which would also come at a cost.

Meanwhile, he said even though they would need a substantial amount of money to host the World Relays, he said they spent around P500 000 to prepare for the winning bid document.

He said they spent money on stationery, data, transport adding that those preparing for the document had to be compensated for their fuel and time.

While preparing the bid document, he said they had to provide information on how they would host the relays, adding that in some instances, they had to outsource services that BAA could not provide.

“There were some videos that we had to submit, but as the BAA we do not have capacity to shoot and edit videos,” he said. 

Theetso said they were expected to shoot videos from President Advocate Duma Boko, Minister of Sport and Arts, Jacob Kelebeng, and other stakeholders to confirm their support for the bid, which were to be shared with World Athletics. 

“This then called for editing and packaging our product well so that the message could be clear, and that alone came with costs,” he said. ENDS