Botswana Premier League’s Security Systems FC have pulled out from the CAF Confederations Cup citing financial constraints.
Systems were to make a bow in African inter-club football after finishing as runner-up in the Orange FA Cup towards the end of last. The ‘Alarm Boys’ qualified for the competition by virtue of their FA Cup opponents Gaborone United (GU) had won the league championship will be competing in the CAF Champions League.
The team has been on an incessant rise recently after finishing fourth in the Covid-19 disrupted 2019/2020 league season, which was the club’s highest ever league finish.
The team reached their maiden major cup final in the just ended and were unlucky to lose to GU. Systems has proved to be one of the financially stable clubs in Botswana and are owned by Security Systems, a security services company.
The club’s secretary general, Billy Molebatsi confirmed to FARPost their decision to forfeit their spot in Africa’s second tier continental club football tournament. He said the club is financially handicapped to meet P1 million demand ahead of the first of the preliminary round of the games.
“It is indeed true that we have come to a decision to withdraw out of the tournament. We are new in to this level of football and we had thought the costs would be slightly lower. Our sole financier is the mother company and like any other business entity here, they are recovering from the problem brought by Covid-19.”
“It proved to be of high cost for the mother company yo part such an amount and a decision was taken to withdraw even before the draw conducted. We had sought assistance from the BFA (Botswana Football Association) and the BNSC (Botswana National Sports Commission) we got nothing. We needed around P1million for the first and second legs and it was too much of a cost. We wrote to BFA alerting them of our decision to drop out,” Molebatsi said.
He also said the technical and playing staff have taken the news well and will he eager to qualify for the inter-club competitions in the future.
“We will come out of this as a better club, we have learned that is the most important thing. It was a painful decision to take but our players and the coach do understand. We feel for out supporters who have been with us the whole journey but we will come back stronger in the future,” Molebatsi said.
By Kabelo Boranabi
