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Of soccer and charlatans
Chris Kabwato, Zimbabwe in Pictures
July 08, 2011

The short visit by the Joseph "Sepp" Blatter, President of the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) brought some mixed feelings in me. At one level I felt it was great that the leader of FIFA had made a detour to Zimbabwe on his way to the more important business of the International Olympics Committee (IOC) in Durban. At another level I thought that it was rather hypocritical of Blatter to ask Zimbabwe to put its football house in order.

FIFA is not exactly in order and the drama in the past few months involving the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 world cups to Russia and Qatar, respectively, point to an organisation that needs radical surgery in the way it conducts business. In the run-up to the elections for the FIFA presidency the organisation behaved very much like a political party heading for congress or more like a Mike Tyson street brawl. Allegations of bribery were flung from one corner to the other. When the carnage was over, Jack Warner, the once powerful FIFA Vice President and the boss of Caribbean soccer lay on the floor - bloodied and out.

The undoing of Warner was switching allegiance from his wily boss, Blatter, to Mohamed Bin Hammam, the upstart from Qatar who wanted the FIFA crown. Bin Hammam and Warner were KO-d when allegations surfaced that they had paid bribes of 40,000 greenbacks to each official of the Caribbean Football Union. Mind you this is the same arrogant Warner that would use his family-s travel agency to exclusively handle world cup air tickets for delegates from his region.

In the days prior to the election, Warner fumed and said he had a whole dossier on Blatter and his corrupt ways. But Blatter dealt with him the way he has always dealt with his foes - he isolated him and ensured he was suspended. Warner is as good as dead now. He may have watched too many Wall Street movies and took the line "Greed is good" too literally.

If you want some juicy tidbits on both Blatter and Warner go to www.transparencyinsport.org where you will find articles written by journalist Andrew Jennings. Blatter and Jennings don-t see eye to eye and the former will not even think of suing the journalist. Don-t ask me why. I ain-t saying nothing.

The coming of Blatter also caused me to reflect on football administration in Zimbabwe and its dysfunctional nature. Just last year when the elections for a new executive for the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) were going to take place different copies of the constitution of the mother body were circulating. The candidates that came forward represented the normal circus - down and out businessmen, faded soccer players of yesteryear, recycled administrators, and a mere handful of credible people. It is, of course, a credit to Cuthbert Dube that he has managed to stabilise the ZIFA ship but he should constantly watch his back - the vultures have smelt the money coming from the FIFA coffers and, be assured, they will be circling up there ready to pounce.

The chaos in our soccer which ranges from the perennial internecine wars at Dynamos Football Club to the current allegations of football fixing in international matches speaks to that frightening concept called leadership. Indeed the current stability of ZIFA belies the chaos which we have had to live with since the ousting of the elephant of football, Nelson Chirwa. From then it has been a rollercoaster of sorts - Trevor Carelse-Juul, Leo Mugabe, Vincent Pamire, Rafik Khan, Wellington Nyatanga and now, Dube. For those with a long memory the days of a patrician like John Madzima represent the halcyon days of football leadership.

But, of course, not everyone would agree because in 1976 Highlanders pulled out of Madzima-s Rhodesia National Football League and became part of what was called the South Zone Soccer League. Different sources will give you different reasons for that pull-out - from the controversial win by Dynamos of the Chibuku Trophy to issues of gate takings.

We can only hope then that Dube might turn out to be a throwback to those times when he had a leadership that was passionate about soccer and not chibhanzi. But we should surely worry when an organisation has to rely on the personal finances of its leader. Whilst I agree that it is selfless of Dube to inject his own money into ZIFA, there should be clarity that these are loans and that the funds will be reimbursed when the organisation is back in the black.

Dube does not seem to me to be doing what that shameless epitome of kleptocracy, Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga (the all-powerful warrior who goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake) used to do - claiming to be using his own money to bail out Zaire whilst salting away billions abroad.

I would like to argue that the mediocrity that has come our way in football is a microcosm of a larger problem. We don-t have enough leaders to lead us in all spheres of our lives - political, business, civic and religious. It is not that we never had them - it is just that we have undergone severe regression in the past decade. Our visionary and fearless leaders have either disappeared or metamorphosed into zombies. Meanwhile we can-t seem to birth a new leadership.

If the debacle I witnessed at the June SADC Summit is anything to go by then we should fear both the future and the present. I do not say this lightly. I will take up this issue next week.

For now let us thank Comrade Blatter for shining the spotlight on us and let us wish Cuthbert Dube good luck.

Our soccer needs to be kenge.

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