Moorosi Tsiane
FORMER Women’s Football Committee president, Puseletso Mokhosi, has accused the Lesotho Football Association (LeFA) of faltering in its decision not to enrol the national women’s team for this year’s edition of the COSAFA Cup.
LeFA media officer, Mikia Kalati, last week announced that the team would not be enrolled for this year’s edition due to its poor performances in the previous tournaments.
COSAFA will run from 15 to 26 September in Nelson Mandela Bay.
However, in an interview with the Lesotho Times last week, Mokhosi accused LeFA of making a decision that is depriving players a chance to grow.
“Firstly, COSAFA is a developmental tournament and countries like ours should be using it to our capacity,” Mokhosi said.
“The team was not registered in 2019 and the results were still the same when it returned last year, so one would think instead of not enrolling the team, we should send it there to weigh ourselves and our programmes.”
The former Kick4Life Ladies’ coach said the tournament gives Lesotho a chance to expose its young players.
“This is the kind of tournament where you send your young players and give them exposure while also preparing for the bigger competitions such as the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations,” she said.
While conceding that Mehalalitoe has been faring poorly, in the tournament, he attributed the poor results to inconsistency.
“If we want to perform well, we must send the team there annually because consistency is essential in international competitions. Let us go there and get whipped. The more we participate the more we improve.
“When Mauritius first played in the COSAFA, they were every opponent’s punching bag they continued sending the team until it started improving. they were beaten fiercely but they kept on sending their team until they got better, they are no longer push overs.
“COSAFA is not a tournament where you take your best, so we shouldn’t be worried about results for now as our focus should be on the progress that we have made in the last 12 months that we have been preparing for it. Do we have a clear plan of what we want to do in the next 12 months now that the team has not been registered? Does the plan also include Covid-19 because these are the issues that we should be working on in terms of a 12-months’ tournament programme,” Mokhosi said.
