By Batsirai Sango.
For much of the progressive world across the globe development, success in any social spheres has come about through deliberate, collective harnessing of every resource available. This inturn has led to a situation where no one feels left out, marginalized as success, development has cascaded down across the length and breadth of society.The world’s most beautiful game has thrived in the nations whom we see as superpowers of the game in this day, simply to what I have alluded to.
Take the most followed football league in the world the English premier league, London is the nation’s capital but there is no bias towards the capital as development, success and gospel of the game of football has gone everywhere.
You have teams from Manchester, Merseyside and Yorkshire all dominating challenging for honors which has led to the afro mentioned success.
Take the most successful nation in the Fifa world cup Brazil and the reigning world champions Argentina, football is a religion and luminaries of the game there in Pele and Maradona “Saints”. These greats though not coming from the most prestigious of social setups or big cities, but from the smallest however because football is religion, there was nothing that could stand in the way.
In my beloved Zimbabwe over the last decades since the turn of independence there has been a deliberate effort to Hararerize everything football especially in the nation’s number 1 team the national football team.
When talent and merit should and ought to matter, it’s been a case of where you come from with our football in Zimbabwe,regionalism determines one’s selection and appointment in national football circles.
With the turn of the 90s era, came the football administration at 53 Livingstone Avenue of Trevor Careel Juul who ignited so much passion and hope for the national team coining the term the “The Dream” team.
Here was a man in touch with the times, as the name had previously been used to describe the US basketball team at Barcelona 1992 that had NBA stars in their ranks.
The period in which the dream team ran with Mr Juul who hails from Bulawayo running football was and still remains the most fondest of all in local football.
As a result of the purple patch envy followed and football corridors where manipulated to thinking all has to be in Harare and in came one Leo Mugabe who like his uncle the former president Robert Mugabe imposed patronage and later had to be forced out because of maladministration.
The subsequent administrations that have followed have all been the same with the most recent Felton Kamambo administration, leading to the nation being suspended from Caf and Fifa as well as not having any football venue fit enough to host Caf and Fifa licensed games.
And all this has happened with people who hail from the capital, who can forget Cuthbert Dube and his mediocre style of administration or the Wellington Nyatanga board that led to the Asiagate match fixing scandal, with Henrietta Rushwaya as CEO
You also look at the man at the helm of the national team then the Dream Team the late Reinhard Fabisch whose love for discipline and commitment had others baying for his blood on why he left out Moses Chunga.
Chunga a Dynamos son a team from the nation’s capital was dropped in favor of Rahman Gumbo.
He was past his prime and it was common knowledge he had disciplinary issues, which Fabisch could not contend with for the sake of a harmonious national team setup.
Memory Mucherahowa was an influential captain at club side Dynamos but not good enough for the national team, suffice to say there was a missing link in his play or character conduct.
This can also explain why products of Harare’s big two none have never set the European football scene alight in recent times , not being brutal Energy Murambadoro was destined for greatness but decided to abscond his Israeli club, where he had rubbed shoulders with greats like Patrick Kluivert, Allan Shearer in European club football.
If you look back in retrospect at the composition of the national team then majority of the players hailed from teams based in Bulawayo.
Bruce Grobelaar though turning out for English giants Liverpool was former Highlanders, the late Willard Khumalo, the late Mercedes Sibanda, the late Rahman Gumbo, the late Adam Ndlovu,Madinda Ndlovu, the late Benjamin Nkonjera, the great Peter Ndlovu were all Highlanders, then Agent Sawu, Henry Mckop, Ephraim Chawanda all were Zimbabwe Saints and all exhibited the highest level of discipline and commitment to the national team that not anyone has matched to this day.
Except for the late Francis Shonhayi, Vitalis Takawira, Norman Mapeza, John Phiri who came from Dynamos and Darren T respectively, the majority of players who composed the dream team hailed from Bulawayo teams.
It says a lot about what Fabisch saw and appreciated in players who hailed from the city of Bulawayo and this can only be defined by the nation’s greatest of all Peter Ndlovu.
That composition of the national team Pernell Mckop once said was an issue for the politicians and others in the media in terms of the number of players in it from each part of the country.
This proves right the narrative by former Education and sports minister in the Government of national unity David Coltart who remarked politics had been the cancer that had stunted football growth and development.
Reinhard Fabisch, coach of the famed dream team being a native of Germany one could not fault him of any social bias, whatever decision he made in terms of selection of players, it was football related.
And this inevitably shook the football structures and corridors with clubs from Harare feeling left out as very few of their players made the cut into the national team.
If selection of players into the national team involves trying to appease what football clubs from a section of the country will say, then it’s toxic football of the highest order and cancerous to success we so endeavor.
The current state of affairs speaks volumes to that and the seemingly perpetual mode with no end insight,spells a continuation of the mediocrity we have continued to witness.
