Gaborone United chairman, Nicholas Zakhem has availed funds for the team’s assignment to the Confederation of African Football (CAF) cup competition billed for next month, the club’s PRO, Herbet Letsebe has confirmed.
GU secured a slot for the Confederation Cup after beating Orapa United1-0 in the Orange FA Cup season 4 finals this past Saturday.
The money machine joins Jwaneng Galaxy for the CAF competition which qualified for Champions League after winning the Botswana Football League (BFL) 2022/23 season. Galaxy’s PRO, Tankiso Morake has also previously promised that they will honour the competitions.
GU will need a minimum of about USD 275 000 (more than P3.6 million) while Galaxy will roughly need USD 500 000 (more than P6.6 million) for overall competition logistics.
In an interview, Letsebe confirmed that all the funds for transportation, accommodation and other logistics have already been availed to them. However, the PRO could not give much detail about funds citing that formal communication will be revealed once fixtures for the competition have been released.
“The chairman has guaranteed us his support for the competition so we are waiting for the fixtures because they are the ones that will determine the total amount needed for the competitions. As soon as fixtures and formal communication from CAF is released, the funds will be disclosed,” he told Times Sport.
The team spokesperson assured that the chairman, technical team, staff and players are rallying behind the club to honor the CAF competition and make sure they win something out of it.
Furthermore, Letsebe indicated that the boys are ready for the continental competition noting that they will sign some new players to strengthen their squad following the recent release of Obonwe Maome, Kgakgamatso Motshegise and Tshepo Malgas.
According to Letsebe, in their previous CAF competition, they used more than half a million in their assignment at Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo where they faced AS Vita.
CAF is expected to release fixtures for confederation cup before August as the qualifying rounds will start in the 20th August 2023 (First round) and the 27th August for the second round. Should GU win the first round they will then qualify for the group stages which will commence from 3rd December 2023 up to 28th February 2024. The confederation cup will then move to knockout stages which will consist of quarter finals on the 17th March – 31st March 2024 while semi-finals will be on the 14th April – 21st April 2024. The final for confederation cup will take place in May 2024.
As for Galaxy, they will resume for qualifying matches on the 18th August to 30th September 2023 and continues for the other stages of the competition 1st December 2023 up until 12th May 2024.
