By Batsirai Sango.
The local league in Zimbabwe the Premier soccer league is heating up and the football loving fans have not disappointed either thronging every football venue to cheer on their local teams. With all the passion, emotion and nerve breaking moments the league has created at the turn of the season its heartbreaking to know the national broadcaster ZBC TV is and has not been screening the local league.
The situation has been like that for some time with the national broadcaster crying foul of lack of funds and antiquated equipment making it difficult for it to screen local games live. It is a disheartening situation considering how most of the regional national broadcasters’ screen live local matches with SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) broadcasting live DSTV premiership matches.
With 10 matches for all teams into the season one can only imagine fans who have not been able to make it to the stadiums have missed out, with the first installment of the Harare Derby Dynamos versus Caps United, Highlanders versus FC Platinum being the opening climaxes.
With the battle of Zimbabwe on the horizon the gigantic match between the two biggest clubs in the land Highlanders and Dynamos one only wonders and imagines what those who will not be able make it to and into the stadium will miss out in this epic match. A match that attracts a capacity crowd of over 30 thousand plus and divides the entire nation into 2 halves the black and white half of Highlanders and the blue half of Dynamos, then you have a national broadcaster failing to screen that match and others on national television what insubordination of national interests.
Just recently on Soccer Africa the biggest football show on the continent that looks at everything African foot wise, the battle of Zimbabwe was among the derbies on the continent listed on the show football fans would choose from to go watch say they won a ticket to go watch any football on the continent.
The sheer listing of the encounter among the many gigantic fixtures on the continent is a clear sign of how huge the match is and to think that the national broadcaster ZBC TV cannot broadcast local premiership football is saddening and pathetic.
And it does not get any higher with those matches attracting near full house capacity crowds, and what a deliberate marketing gesture it would be of the local game to the outside football community and would be investors seeing such crowds, even other football broadcasters would be encouraged to come onboard increasing the game’s commercial returns.
The broadcasting authorities in Zimbabwe have enjoyed a monopoly over the broadcasting frequency spectrum for decades and have stifled efforts by private players to do their part, it can be in radio and television broadcast the situation is anti-progress.
This they have done with the passing into law of the Broadcasting services act of 2001 that gave life to the broadcasting authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) the chief and sole licensor of broadcasting licenses in the country.
The passing of such a law and the many decades of monopoly have had their effect on the broadcast scene as evidenced by the lack of plurality more especially in the television broadcasting area which has affected the entertainment needs and requirements of the national audience.
The situation has been that being the sole licensor prospective broadcast players who are deemed as nemesis to the government are denied the right to operate, and those aligned or are deemed subservient to the state get the greenlight to operate.
A case in point is JOY Tv a private television station that operated towards the close of the 20th century from the capital Harare, had its license revoked even before the advent of the draconian broadcasting services act of 2001 a clear sign of how the authorities vilify and make every private player an enemy of the “state”.
You have ZTN a television station owned by Zim papers the company that runs state newspapers the Herald, the Sunday Mail, that is currently screening local matches but it’s not every ordinary soccer loving person who has access to the television station. All in the name of supposedly having private players in the television broadcast sector in the name of Zim papers a government funded institution one wonders.
The situation shows the half-hearted approach by the authorities in liberalizing the broadcasting space more especially in the television broadcast area which has brought about the failure to screen local premiership matches on local television sets.
Considering the challenges, the national broadcaster has been encountering one wonders why then the authorities have put together an armory of legislation to prevent other players from coming into the broadcasting space, yet they are failing to fulfill their mandate.
One of the chief mandates of the national broadcaster is to advance things that of national interest and ensure accessibility across every length and breadth of the nation and how much more in the interest of the nation is it to screen the local football league.
In the early 80s and most of the later stages of the 20th century football in Zimbabwe was made more popular through radio broadcast and the football stars of that generation were made known to the football loving fans through radio with people like the late Evans Mambara the early football commentators of that generation.
It gave the football fans a chance to know their players and developed an affection between the game the players and the fans, but the prevailing status quo does not allow for such and has killed a whole chain of results, benefits that could be reaped from the screening of the local premier soccer league.
