Herald
By Robson Sharuko
9 October 2010
FROM the very beginning it was so clear that there was something terribly wrong, that it was all certain to end in tears, controversy and accusations of betrayal, that it was all an insult to professionalism as we know it today and that it was all so shadowy even the football gods rejected it.
From the very start it was so clear that something would go horribly wrong, that it was all poised to end in heartbreak, mudslinging and a bad Press, that it was all an insult to the values of management as we know it today and that it was all so primitive that even the football gods dissociated themselves from the farce.
From the word go it was so clear that something just wasn’t right, that it was all meant to end in embarrassment, problems and complications, that it was all an insult to the ethics of leadership as we know it today and that it was all so ancient, bordering on being barbaric, that even the football gods turned away from the madness.
From the beginning it was so clear that it was all comic, it was all a mess, was simply chaotic, everything was in a shambles, there was anarchy and all the structures were in disarray.
A few weeks later, on the eve of the Warriors’ key 2012 Nations Cup qualifier against Cape Verde at the National Sports Stadium tomorrow, we all have egg on our faces — the journalists, the kamikaze administrators, the disgraced technical committee, everyone at 53 Livingstone Avenue and everyone employed to write the world’s most beautiful game in this country.
Tom Saintfiet, the man handpicked by the Zifa technical committee, is holed up in Francistown, across our western border in Botswana, waiting for a call telling him that his application for a work permit to coach the Warriors has been processed and, if he passes the test, returning to take his post as the gaffer.
The team that he was meant to coach tomorrow remains without a substantive coach, five months after the last substantive coach Sunday Chidzambwa left the job, and it is a measure of how badly we manage our football that the team that Mhofu joined, and then left, in South Africa, has already found a replacement.
The man we trusted to guide the team in Liberia, during our search for the coach, and was only thrust into the Warriors’ coaching staff because of public pressure because the technical committee didn’t like Norman Mapeza so much they even settled for Friday Phiri and Madinda Ndlovu as assistant coaches to Saintfiet, remains in limbo after being abused by a system that hates him with a passion.
In the week that all the focus was supposed to fall on the Warriors’ preparations, all the attention shifted to the circus in the camp related to their coaches and the troops could only watch, from a distance, and wonder whether this is the madness that they wanted to see when they left their foreign bases for a week on national duty serving their dear motherland.
But was it all supposed to be like this?
Definitely No!
But we should have read the signs from day one that there was something horribly wrong — the flawed selection process where the technical committee, in their obsession to appoint a foreign coach, offered Saintfiet the job long before Mapeza had been interviewed for the same post.
We should have read the signs when stories were leaked that Mapeza didn’t have the qualifications, as a way of justifying the decision to choose Saintfiet, even though the Belgian didn’t have a league championship under his belt — a key part of the CV of a coach, according to the advert placed by Zifa, which the association was looking for to guide the Warriors.
We should have read the signs when Madinda and Friday, who had not applied for the posts, were suddenly airlifted from obscurity into the fast lane of the Warriors’ coaching staff, roped in as lieutenants Saintfiet ahead of Mapeza even though, given his service to the team, under Mhofu and his own, Norman appeared a better candidate for the assistant coach’s positions.
The Taxi Ride From The Airport
We should have known that there was something wrong, with the whole thing, when Saintfiet arrived in the capital that Monday evening and, at the Harare International Airport, there was only Benedict Moyo to welcome him here.
Where were the other board members?
Given the importance of the visitor, one would have expected the whole Zifa board to have been at Harare International Airport to welcome the new coach, make him feel at home and show him that he had the support of everyone in their team. But there was only one man, who lives in Kwekwe, to welcome him at the airport and, another man, who lives in Bulawayo, to welcome him to the hotel he checked into that night.
Where were all the Harare-based board members?
We should have known that there was something wrong when Saintfiet was bundled into a taxi, on arrival at Harare International Airport that Monday evening, because — if we are genuine to our conscience — that’s not the way we welcome such important visitors to our country.
There is nothing wrong with a taxi ride, and the people who live in Europe, will tell you that it’s all fine.
But there is everything questionable with a Zifa board, which has consistently provided cars and luxury buses to pick up visiting referees, visiting referees’ instructors, visiting Fifa development officers, visiting coaches’ instructors, visiting foreign teams and their officials, to suddenly change the way they conduct business now that their coach, the Warriors’ coach, was coming.
Why was Tom bundled into that taxi when everyone who has visited us has been provided with a chauffer driven car, to ferry him or her from the airport to their hotel, given that — because of the Warriors’ importance — he was probably the most important foreign football visitor since the turn of the millennium.
Did it mean that a Zifa board that had chartered a long-haul Boeing 767 200 Extended Range passenger jet at the cost of about US$250 000, and given free seats to scores of fans on the tour of Liberia, had suddenly gone so broke that it couldn’t afford to provide a decent car for Saintfiet — if everything was above board — just to take him on that short trip from the airport?
On that Monday evening, with the summer darkness having fallen over Harare, as Saintfiet emerged into the arrivals lounge, only to be greeted by the lonely figure of Benedict Moyo, we probably missed a big story that should have told us that whatever was happening, related to the coach, was not the work of a united Zifa board.
On that Monday evening, as a gentle summer evening breeze filtered from the Manyame River and gave a lovely comforting massage burnt out by the intense heat of that afternoon, we should have known that we were not privileged witnesses to a marriage made in heaven but we were just seeing a union made in hell.
We should have known then that there were cracks within the Zifa board, when it came to the coach, and the man who appeared solidly in support of his candidature was the only one who had braved the challenge to come and welcome Saintfiet to Zimbabwe that day.
Now, as the drama reaches fever pitch, we can only look to that very first day and see that there was more, to what we saw at Harare International Airport that day, than what we cared to analyse.
Together, as journalists, we let our readers down because we didn’t see the story behind the story, we didn’t see what CNN would have called the Back Story, we didn’t see the plots and sub-plots hidden behind the absence of the other board members and we didn’t care to question why this appeared to be a one-man show.
Now, three weeks down the line, we know what we missed, how we missed it and how we failed to prepare our readership, that evening, for the chaos that was likely to follow.
We are all poorer, as the football writing journalists of this country, for that omission.
Work Permit Blues Everywhere
Well, Saintfiet remains holed up in Botswana and a number of people have already spoken out about this issue with even the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture David Coltart, a man whose commitment to his job, and professionalism, are virtues I have learnt to respect, also adding his voice.
What has clearly emerged from all the voices is that the case, related to the coach, could have been handled better.
What has also emerged from all this is that noone is above the law and, on Monday and Tuesday, the country’s laws were broken.
Someone lied to the coach, possibly those who employed him in the first place, that he could go ahead and work without a work permit, as what happened on Monday and Tuesday, and court all the controversy that followed.
But why are Saintfiet’s disciples trying to give us the impression that the coach’s problems are unique and, because of that, it should be the product of an underground movement that didn’t want him to be on the bench tomorrow?
Why are these people suddenly being allowed to make a mockery of the immigration authorities in this country?
Why are the Zifa board members trying to get a helping hand from Vice-President John Nkomo, whom they say is their patron now that times are bad, when the Zifa Council removed the status of patron from the revised constitution when times where good?
Have we forgotten that we have thousands of skilled Zimbabweans, who because of their educational qualities, were offered jobs in many foreign countries right now but they probably missed that chance to start a new life after running into complications related to being granted work permits.
The irony of it all is that Norman Mapeza is also a victim of all this. Having impressed in Turkey, playing in the Champions League for Galatasaray, as a midfield partner of Georgi Hagi, known as the Maradona of the Carpathian Mountains, and playing against Barcelonaand the likes of Romario and Stoichkov, Mapeza caught the attention of Harry Redknapp.
Redknapp was then in charge of West Ham, known as the Academy of Football in England because of its excellent youth development programme, and Mapeza arrived at Upton Park for trials and impressed, in his first week, and was offered a contract.
He was supposed to partner Rio Ferdinand, who was then at West Ham before his move to Leeds United and then Manchester United, in central defence.
But while Mapeza had impressed Redknapp and was offered a contract, he could only sign after being granted a work permit.
As it turned out, the British Immigration authorities turned down West Ham’s application for Mapeza’s work permit because Zimbabwe was such a lowly ranked nation in the world and, in line with new regulations in that country, a player from this nation could only be granted a work permit under special circumstances.
Redknapp didn’t make the stupid move to field Mapeza because he knew that the laws didn’t allow that, he knew it was illegal and he knew that the Zimbabwean wouldn’t be given a licence to play in the Premiership as long as he didn’t have a work permit.
It was the end of Mapeza’s dream to move to England, not because he was not good, but because he fell foul of the law.
I remember calling Ferdinand one night, after being given his phone number by an agent, and we talked at length about Mapeza and he told me, in an interview later published in this newspaper, that he was disappointed that West Ham had lost such a talent because of work permit complications.
But Ferdinand said that was the way life was and, since it was what the law said, it was just unfortunate that they couldn’t change anything and he wished Mapeza all the best in the rest of his career.
Norman would not be the last Zimbabwean player to run into complications, related to work permits, in an English club career.
Onismor Bhasera, who is certain to play leftback tomorrow for the Warriors, went through the same nightmare when he tried to join Portsmouth last season after the Fratton Park club, which was then in the Premiership, offered him a contract.
It then required a number of appeals, while the player’s career was in limbo, before Bhasera was eventually cleared — a couple of months down the line — and then joined Plymouth Argyle in the Championship.
So what is so special about Saintfiet that this whole country should come to a standstill, simply because he was politely asked to leave the country to ensure that he remains on the good side of the law while his application is being processed, and we all should close our shops and schools for his cause?
I have no problem with Tom and I sympathise with him here because he wasn’t familiar with the laws of this country and there are people who told him that he would not be breaking any laws, even if he conducted the training sessions, because everything was under control.
Those are the people who are causing all this chaos.
People Power
The Zifa board needs to understand, and do so urgently, that their job is merely to serve the game in the interests of the majority of the people of this country.
Once their execution of duties, differs sharply with the interests of this country, then it means that there is something terribly wrong with that.
Of course, it doesn’t mean that the majority is always right but there are certain issues, especially when it comes to football, when even the average fan knows who is certainly the best player in the country and who are certainly the best coaches around.
I’m not saying that the Zifa board should make populist decisions but it should try, as much as possible, to ensure that whatever decision they are bound to make, falls in line with the interests of the majority of the fans.
When this Zifa board made a firm decision against trips to Asia by the Warriors, on the basis that they were bringing the name of the team into disrepute and were adding no value to the side, it was a decision that fell in line with the interests of the majority of the fans.
So it was not surprising that the board received the full backing of the people of this country.
When the same Zifa board made the decision to let Mapeza lead the Warriors, on a caretaker basis, for the game against Liberia, it was a decision that fell in line with the interests of the majority of the fans and that was why there was no controversy.
What created controversy this time around was that the decision to appoint Saintfiet as coach, ahead of Mapeza, did not appear to fall in line with the interests of the majority of the fans whose soul remain tormented by a past where foreign coaches have failed.
When the same fans look at giants like Cote d’Ivoire and see that even the Elephants, for all their profile and star players, have ditched the concept of foreign coaches and turned to the locals, those fans read something in those moves.
When the same fans recall the events that happened at the 2010 Nations Cup finals, and realise that for all the galaxy of foreign coaches who were there, it took a team led by a local coach, the Pharaohs of Egypt, to win the tournament, those supporters read something into all that. When the same fans recall that the winners of the last three editions of the Nations Cup finals, for all the big number of foreign coaches who have featured at the tournaments, have been a team coached a local coach, these supporters read something into all that.
When the same fans see that even Bafana Bafana, for all the money that is in their football, have even gone local, they read something into all that because they are wise enough to understand that there is no money in our football and can’t understand where we have suddenly got US$8 000 (net) every month to pay Saintfiet.
They ask why shouldn’t that money be invested in the players, who play the game and fly our national flag, so that we can see if it cannot inspire them to play better and produce good results?
They wonder why Norman appears to have become so bad that he cannot even be number one, and when the preferred number one runs into problem, he cannot even be number two when, only a month ago when the going was tough in Liberia, he was the number one.
They question why Saintfiet can come here and, rather than be a diplomat, he plunges into stupid battles, including mocking our point in Liberia with a foolish excuse that the Lone Stars should have been beaten, all in an attempt to rub salt into the wounds of Norman.
They ask that if Saintfiet was such a saint and points are easy to pick on the road in Africa, as he appeared to claim in his childish attack on Norman, why then did Namibia then lose against little Gambia in Banjul in their first 2012 Nations Cup qualifier last month?
They read what is coming from Namibia and when that country’s Football Association president John Muinjo comments about Saintfiet, they listen and ask questions.
“If it is true that he has been appointed as Zimbabwe’s national team coach, then he was not loyal and he is not credible. We have not received any communication from him. He lacked the professionalism to tell us that he wants to go for another offer in Zimbabwe,” said Muinjo.
“His (Saintfiet) contract is performance based. He lost focus and obviously saw that he was failing to qualify this country for the 2012 Nations Cup, that’s why he decided to go.”
They ask, given all this, if it was necessary for a country like Zimbabwe, and an organisation like Zifa, to go to a friendly nation like Namibia and create all this confusion by poaching this coach?
They need answers, these fans, and when they don’t get answers they believe that their interests are not being represented and that is what torches a rebellion.
We Can’t Dump Our Boys
Given all that has happened, the worst thing we could do for our boys — who have suffered so much during the turbulent week — is to abandon them right now just when they need us the most.
The last thing we could do, right now, is take our frustrations to our boys and decide not to support them, in this big game, simply because we are disappointed by this and that thing which happened.
The best thing that we can do for our boys is to fill the stadium, just the way we did it when Brazil came to town, and in that theatre of dreams, we will re-discover our soul, we will find each other again, we will warm up to the Zifa technical committee and we will try to win tomorrow’s game.
The best thing we can do for our Warriors is to support their cause and show them that, even though they were betrayed by the football leadership, we stand by them and, by going to the National Sports Stadium in numbers, we would have scored a beautiful goal against the administrators.
Let’s forget about the problems that have plagued our camp this week and, just for these last two days, let’s shift the focus to the boys who matter much, the Warriors, so that they feel that their nation is behind them and wants them to do more than what they did in Liberia.
Let’s forget about all the enemies we created this week, because that is what happens in a struggle, and — just for this weekend — let’s reach out to our foes and let’s join hands, united by our identity as Zimbabweans, in backing our dear Warriors.
Let’s forget about all the people who have made us angry this week, even if a lot of now appear to have a problem with what is going on at 53 Livingstone Avenue, and — for the moment — let’s concentrate on what matters and the mission should be to beat Cape Verde.
Let’s forget all those Zifa leaders who tried to split us into tribal groups, through their demarcation of the national team into tribal zones that need representation in the Warriors, and — for a moment — let’s concentrate on what matters most.
If we win tomorrow, and we should, we will heal some of the wounds we have all inflicted in the game that we all love in a forgettable week.
The good thing is that we will have about five months, from tomorrow to our next game in Mali, and there will be time to sort out our problems.
Do it for your dear motherland my true Warriors.