sports

Jan. 17, 2020

TEBOHO JAFETA

2 min read

Another regional tourney for Chess Lesotho

Another regional tourney for Chess Lesotho

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MASERU – The successful hosting of the Zone 4.5 African Youth Chess Championship at the Blue Mountain Inn, in Teyateyaneng, Berea, in October last year’s Chess Lesotho has been handed the honour to put up another regional tourney.

Lesotho is set to welcome regional countries competing in the forthcoming 2020 Zone 4.5 African Individuals Chess Championship from February 8 to 17; this despite the sports not being part of the AUSC Region 5 games scheduled for December – also to be held in the country.

The public relations officer of the Chess Federation of Lesotho (CFL) PRO, Selatela Khiba said the association had commenced preparations for the games “though as usual we are still faced with financial limitations for this big event”.

Khiba said: “We are still sourcing sponsorship. There are some potential sponsors who promised to finance us, but we have not rested…we are continuing to talk to others to come on board so that we wrap the financial part up.

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“A draft budget has also been dispatched to the Lesotho Sports and Recreation Commission (LSRC) for consideration and approval even though we are yet to receive an official response.”   

The LSRC last year announced its dire financial position, revealing it had been allocated a measly M2 million to support all sporting codes in the country for the financial year 2019/2020.

This will be the first time in history for Lesotho to host a competition of this calibre.

In a separate interview, the national team female player ’Malehloa Likhomo mentioned that she was ready for the competition but still needed to partake in at least one other competition to sharpen herself for the zonal competition.

“I need at least one competition ahead of this zonal competition, and the CFL has organised one that will satisfy my need, the Lesotho Open Chess tourney scheduled on January 31,” she said.

The LSRC PRO Teboho Rakhomo said the commission would only be able to help the CFL in several areas other than with finance for the zonal competition.

“We can offer any sponsorship to CFL other than financial one because our coffers are currently dry, we have not yet received subvention money from the ministry of sports and recreation,” he indicated.

Rakhomo further said they advised the federation to forward their proposal to the ministry directly as other federations had managed to get assistance from the ministry.

“Some federations that we sent to the ministry have been considered while others have not, so it depends on whether the ministry will give theirs the thumbs up or not,” he noted.

Zone 4.5 African Individuals Chess Championship features countries from the Southern Africa region including Lesotho, South Africa, Botswana, eSwatini, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Angola, among others.

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