Baboneng yet to pay BFA

FOOTBALL
Baboneng Film Production is yet to pay Botswana Football Association (BFA) the agreed P1.5 million for the airing of live Debswana National First Division (DNFD)games.BFA and Baboneng recently announced a five-year P9 million broadcasting deal ahead of the 2018/19 season earlier this year.

Some of the terms of the deal were that the local production company would pay the BFA P1.5million per season for the first two years, while the last three will be worth P2million per season.Baboneng has been given sole rights to TV, radio, print and Internet content as well as the branding of stadium during matches. However, BG Sport this week learnt that the football Association is still waiting for payment.

The first games of the 2018/19 season were beamed live on television through Maru TV, this past weekend. It was for very first time in history that First division games were broadcast live on television.This week, BFA Chief Executive Officer Mfolo Mfolo had nothing but praises for Baboneng, “We were mightily impressed by Baboneng, they did very well, everything went according to plan, we are happy,” he said.

Quizzed on whether Baboneng had already paid or not, Mfolo revealed that they are waiting for the money and hopefully Baboneng Productions will pay by next week. Baboneng CEO, Kesebonye Seabelo refrained from commenting on the matter saying they are still sorting the issue at management, “It is a controversial matter, I will not want to discuss it now,” he said.

Nevertheless, local radio station, Duma Fm did not broadcast the games as expected, “We are still discussing the matter, apparently the Duma FM board is not happy with the deal, however we had already signed a contract,” Seabelo said. He explained that they are yet to meet with Duma FM to resolve the matter. 

Meanwhile, Seabelo said that production wise, everything went well this past weekend when they broadcasted a game between TAFIC and Great North Tigers in Francistown. “Everything was well arranged, we did not face any difficulty, we even gave BTV the feed and they will also air the games,” he said.

The Baboneng boss said they have reached an agreement with Botswana Television in which they will always avail the feed to them for broadcast. Baboneng are expected to cover 90 BTC Premiership league games.“We are working on the contract with BTV and we will soon be covering the elite games too,” he said. Seabelo went on to explain that they also live stream on Tysflo, a free application downloaded from Google play store.