ABSTRACT
As in other postcolonial countries, the value systems undergirding Botswana sport, in general, and football, in particular, are syncretic and eclectic. These value systems draw on traditional cosmologies to supplement the rationalities of modern sport structuration. Modernist attempts to whitewash, brainwash and tongue-lash belief in witchcraft notwithstanding, witchdoctors continue to exert a powerful influence on the local physical cultures (e.g., initiation rites, sport, locating groundwater and hunting, among others) as evidence of continuity and change associated with postmodernity. This chapter provides a preliminary understanding of the magical economy of the Botswana local football league. It draws on interviews, narratives and documentary analysis to understand the ethics, logic, assumptions, utility and dynamics of the magical economy of the local football league in Botswana.
