Gaborone United (GU) have turned down a request by the Botswana Football Association (BFA) to release its players for the national team camp. The move is likely to affect preparations of the national team ahead of its crucial encounter with South Africa in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers next month. In an interview on Tuesday, GU secretary general, Herbet Letsebe said the BFA wrote a letter of request to that effect last Friday (August 16), and the team responded the same day. “We have long made our appeal that as a club we want to step up preparations for the next season. We are worried that ever since the end of the last season, our players have been engaged at the national team and we have never had a chance to train together as a unit,’’ he said. Letsebe said the team was together only in their last league game against Notwane and ever since that, their coach had never had a chance to work with the whole unit. “This is a concern looking at the fact that we have new players such as Edwin Olerile. Ever since we signed him from Township Rollers, he has never reported to the team’s training, but the coach is expected to work on new combinations ahead of the new season,’’ he said. On whether their move will not be seen as sabotage on the national team’s reparations, Letsebe said that could not be the case as the FIFA statutes required that teams release their players four days prior to any official game. “All the South African based players are not in camp, but they will surely be available for the game. So we also want to benefit from the clause. We are not actually refusing with the players as people may think, what we want is to be given a chance to train as a team. We will surely release the players in due time as required by FIFA,” he said. Letsebe said they were worried that while other teams were preparing for the new season, they on one hand had been compromised by this constant absence of their players. The Money Machine, as its diehard supporters call it, have a total of eight players in the national team, namely Noah Maposa, Gaopatwe Seosenyeng, Edwin Olerile, Alphonse Modisaotsile, Tebogo Sosome, Jackie Mothatego, Moemedi Moatlhaping and Tebogo Sembowa. Letsebe said they had not yet heard from the BFA ever since they turned down the request on Friday. Meanwhile, when contacted for comment, the BFA chief executive officer, Keith Masters said the national team camp had been postponed as the National Stadium would be handed over to government this Saturday. He however, said they could not get any friendly game to mark the handing over as the Angolan federation turned them down as they would have an engagement on Sunday. “We tried a few other countries but because of the short notice we could not get anything,” he said. However, even if the camp had gone ahead, the national team coach, Stanley Tshosane was likely to be without the serv
Posted on: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 10:06:50 +0000
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