By Mikia Kalati
MASERU — Seephephe “Mochini” Matete, who was in December last year deemed unfit to be head of the technical team at the Lesotho Football Association (Lefa) could finally be relieved from his duties as the technical director of the football governing body, the Lesotho Times can reveal.
This paper has been reliably informed that the Minister of Gender, Youth, Sports and Recreation Commission, Thesele ’Maseribane, has written a letter to Lefa recalling Matete back to the Ministry where he will take his old position as a senior sports organiser.
Top officials of the association also confirmed to this paper that Matete has already been served with a letter informing him that he will no longer be working as the technical director of the association.
A report from Fifa Technical development officer, Govinden Thondoo, conducted between December 10-14 last year had advised Lefa to seek a more qualified technical director.
“The technical director has been in office since 2006 and up to now no clear football development strategy has been established. There is no database, no evaluation and analysis of needs, no annual report,” the report said.
The general observations of the report also indicated that the technical director is not computer literate and this is a big handicap for him to perform properly in the fields of planning, coach education as well as the collection and updating of data.
“In light with the above observations, it is clear that without a qualified person and a structure well set-up, the programmes recommended can’t be implemented successfully.
The report also indicated that there is not enough financial support to implement the few activities proposed by the technical department and that funds earmarked from FAP, in reality are not being used for development at all.
“The top priority would be to build-up a technical structure with the necessary key personnel and sufficient financial and logistic support from Lefa to implement the 2013 proposed technical programme,” the report said.
Former colleagues of Matete at Lefa told this paper that he should have long been relieved of the position of technical director as he was not delivering.
“It is very sad that such a big association has kept people who cannot bring anything to the table to improve the standards of the game,” said a former Lefa official.
Former Lefa Chief Executive Officer, Mofihli Makoele, said he could not say whether Matete was an asset when he worked under him.
“What I can tell you is that Lefa has a responsibility of making sure that the office is fully functional and that means bringing the best candidate for that position after every four years,” Makoele said.
Sports Minister, ’Maseribane, could not be reachable for comment concerning the developments regarding Matete.
