By Batsirai Sango.
The world’s most beautiful game football, as the great Brazilian Pele christened it, beautiful as it has been across the globe, has had to contend with a number of numerous challenges wherever it has been taken to around the globe.
There are four widely accepted and practiced models of management in football, namely private ownership, partner ownership, mixed ownership and lastly public ownership. These four as they are the most widely practiced models of management of the beautiful game, in the Zimbabwean football context and even beyond these models have in a way regressed the development, continuity and the success we so endeavor to see in our football.
It is like the notion academics on the continent have argued severally, does democracy as a system of governance work in Africa, quoting from the recently inaugurated President-Elect of Botswana Duma Boko when he said “we do not have to be dogmatic in our approach to things that Karl Marx, Lenin say about socialism, capitalism and we just plunder, sometimes we have to find solutions that feat our context”. Whatever they authored on socialism, capitalism should act as guides to action.
Safe to say yes, the above-mentioned models of management may be the norm in terms of management models but let us not adopt them blindly, naively without appreciating the key aspects and dynamics in our football context. The management models like in the case of private ownership introduced us to one of the most passionate football club owners in Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich whose ownership of Chelsea propelled the west London club to European football supremacy, royalty until he was forced to sell at the turn of the conflict in Ukraine.
Beneficial to the beautiful game as Abramovich’s ownership of Chelsea was, we cannot say the same about that kind of ownership in our context.
In the case of Zimbabwe, we have had fly by night kind of Roman Abramovich owners, to satisfy their ego have gone into owning football clubs but only for a short while before withdrawing which has led to a situation where football has regressed as those particular clubs have gone defunct leaving players and technical staff at the mercy of fate’s cruelty.
Who can forget AmaZulu which was owned by Delma Lupepe, Buymore owned by Dr. Cuthbert Dube, Gunners, Monomotapa, Kwekwe Cables clubs which did not even span a decade in existence an indication that reflects on the not so long-term investment owners had in the football project. Not being prophets of doom but recently promoted Scotland football club is a clear example of fly by night private owners who just want to satisfy their egos at the expense of the long-term project football is.
Commendable as it is to have investment into our football relevant authorities ought to be strict with clubs as well as owners such that at the initial stages, they can be requirements be it plans or documents that speak into the future of what the long -term project is say a decade, as these fly by night clubs and owners have not even spanned a decade in existence. The situation has been of 2 steps forward the 4 steps backwards which is not healthy for football development. It is rather in the interest of football that instead of investing from scratch, rather partner with existing clubs harness resources and bring the best out of them, ensuring that they become institutions that survive the test of time.
Not only have teams owned by individuals been showing the kind of trends that throw spanners in the works, but teams owned by private organizations, which has been the most prevalent management model of private ownership in Zimbabwean football.
Former league champions Mhangura football club, Lancashire Steel, Rio Tinto FC, Ziscosteel FC. Gaths Mine FC, How Mine FC are all but a memory, with How Mine surrendering their license in 2018, as the slightest of glitches in the business the organization will be involved in the football project will find itself being offloaded and the teams going into oblivion. Most recently Zimplats is planning to offload the football project with Ngezi Platinum and to think the investment that have been making the last years it is a very unfortunate turn of events, and you can bet FC Platinum will surely go down the same path it may not be now but eventually they will also succumb.
Very few such football clubs have stood the test of time, with Hwange FC the colliery-based outfit having a storied football history that spans decades, you also have Mwana Africa the Bindura based outfit now in the Northern region division 1, Shabanie Mine FC in the central region, even in the toughest of time they have been a source of inspiration to local from where they hail from. Monied as these organizations may be and keen to give back to the society as they will be, it is much more convenient to do that through an existing institution that unites the entire community rather than divide, as in the case of Zvishavane where you already had Shabanie Mine, Mimosa simply had to partner them rather than starting another club from scratch with FC Platinum.
