Mosah Mokganedi
28 March 2008
Gaborone — BDF VI men's volleyball team coach Selebatso Mabutho is disappointed by the preparations his charges underwent for the African Club Championships scheduled to start on April 9-17th in Libya. The team leaves for North Africa next week to represent Zone VI at the African event.
About 16 countries from all the seven zones are expected to take part in the tournament. Mabutho said his team has not trained properly due to a number of constraints. He pointed out that players reside in different areas hence it is not easy to get them to train together. The team only started training on Wednesday and Mabutho blamed the late start to the recent rains. The Libya-bound team will not have any training camp. Mabutho said while they would have liked to have the team in camp, this is not possible due to what he described as lack of resources. "We do not have money to keep players in camp, therefore they will just train from their homes," Mabutho explained. He said the Libya tournament is very competitive and need thorough training. "The teams we are going to face are professional and we are going to have a problem playing them," he predicted.
The team last took part in the same tournament three years ago and finished eighth out of 10. They could not take part in the tournament last year because of financial reasons. Mabutho said currently most of their players especially those who are not soldiers are not fit. The team suffered a major setback when one of its influential players, Abraham Motswasele was dropped after he broke his finger.
BDF qualified for the tournament by winning the Zone VI tournament in Malawi last year. "We will really try our best but I cannot promise anything," said the worried Mabutho. Meanwhile, Mafolofolo team leave for the African Women Club Championships on April 16 in Malawi.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Mmegi/The Reporter. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
