‘We’re Down, But Not Out’. . . Cricket’s leaders take their woes to Parliament…or rather “allegations of racism can cover a multitude of sins”

The Herald

7th February 2014

By Augustine Hwata Senior Sports Reporter

THE Zimbabwe Cricket leadership concede that they are guiding their ship through turbulent waters — with the baggage of a huge debt weighing down heavily on the game — but they remain bullish they will weather the storm and guard jealously the country’s Test status.
Domestic cricket has just emerged from a boardroom battle between players and the ZC, which paralysed the domestic game on all fronts, with the players going on strike to press for the payment of outstanding salaries that the association had failed to meet.

Yesterday, the ZC leadership appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Education, Sport, Arts and Culture to present evidence on the state of the second biggest sporting franchise in the country, with the cricket body represented by its chairman Peter Chingoka, vice-chairman Wilson Manase and managing director, Wilfred Mukondiwa.

The ZC leaders insist that their game has been the sporting victim of the political standoff between Zimbabwe and some Western countries and domestic cricket has accumulated massive losses, running in excess of US$30 million in projected earnings, from box-office tours, involving cricket heavyweights England and Australia, which did not go ahead here as scheduled.

Australia and England national teams have not toured Zimbabwe since 2004, for political reasons, and based on the ICC Future Tours principle of reciprocity, the two heavyweight nations, who come with huge television rights earnings, haven’t been to this country on cricket tours four times each.

With one England incoming tour to Zimbabwe grossing about US$5 million for ZC and an Australian incoming tour generating around US$3 million, it means that England’s failure to tour has cost the local cricket organisation about US$20 million and the Aussie no-show has cost them about US$12 million.

If all tours had gone according to schedule, without falling victim to the politics that have kept England and Australia away from this country, the Zimbabwe Cricket leadership believe they would have earned enough money to cover their operational costs and dissolve their debts, which sit at about US$18 million, with enough remaining in their coffers to fund their development programmes.

Yesterday, the ZC leaders reiterated, during their appearance in parliament, that a shadowy racist underworld force, which has been fighting them since they started spreading a game that used to be an elite sporting discipline for just a few players, was still working at full throttle.

Manase, who is a prominent lawyer, claimed there was a powerful pocket of white people who are were still not happy to see the integration that has taken place in Zimbabwe Cricket and said they could see a number of shadows that were working against their project.

“At the team level, there are youngsters who play cricket and, left to them alone, I do not think that we have a problem,” Manase told the parliamentarians.

“The problem is the unseen hand from the elders who still have the hangover from the past period and now come to interfere in the administration and the players.

“They come in and they want to control the strings from the back, yearning for those years when cricket was predominantly played by white people.

“So it’s not as though the players themselves are racists, but you find the unseen hand of elders, who are refusing to shake off the hangover, are the ones who are stirring the pot of racism and this why we said they should put their hands off cricket.

“There are the ones who demonise the administration and they are happy when a white player says, ‘I am leaving Zimbabwe Cricket and I am going to play county cricket in England.’ They say you will come back when times get better, what better times if you are truly Zimbabwean?”

Manase said the public stand-off between former Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister, David Coltart, and ZC convener of selectors, Givemore Makoni, was just an example of the frosty relationship that still exists between black administrators in cricket and some white leaders.

“If you read papers last year, there was a very big debate on the eligibility of Givemore Makoni as the convener of selectors. There was a big argument because the (former) Minister of Sport (David Coltart) had given a directive to the SRC to say that we needed a person who has done this and this,” said Manase.

“That in any way could have guaranteed that a white person would have taken that position.
“We, as Zimbabwe Cricket, have made our choice with Givemore Makoni. That was the first time that I saw the media in Zimbabwe — private and public — coming together to defend a position without coercion and that meant Givemore Makoni remained as the convener of selectors.

“So we are trying to have the people who have experience go into these positions but we are not, in our perception of issues, racist.
“We look at who the coach is, and who the captain should be, on best talent.”

The ZC leaders said they have lived through a storm of repeated allegations that they were abusing funds but, surprisingly, endless audits have been done on their finances, with none showing abuse, and that is why they are still eligible to receive funding from the International Cricket Council.

ZC said they were set to get a tranche of funds that will enable the organisation to pay what it owes to their players and coaching staff by the end of next week.

The ZC also say they are battling to bring down their operational costs from as high as US$900 000 a month to about US$300 000 a month.

ZC chairman Chingoka told the MPs that lack of resources had been their major setback.
“Our dream as Zimbabwe Cricket was to see every potential player being able to play the game of cricket but funding has been a major constrain,” said Chingoka.

“The equipment is sometimes expensive but you have heard of players like Tendai Chatara and Brian Vitori who are now professionals and they came through these programmes.”

ZC also appealed to MPs to look into the issue of duty on sporting equipment as well as creating a Sport Fund through the Ministry of Home Affairs’ Lotto licences.

Chairman of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee, Temba Mliswa, challenged ZC to prove that racism still existed in the sport yet the entire ZC leadership was made of black people.

“Stephen Mangongo has been the deputy national coach for how long? It’s either he is not good enough to be the national coach and you find someone else to be deputy who will then take over since there is going to be some transition,” said Mliswa.

“The last time you went and took a coach from England and the black coach (Mangongo) was under studying and you still bring another coach and this black coach is still constantly understudying.

“It’s 34 years after Independence yet we still talk of racism, yet we have transformed the administration from white to being black. Blacks are now in control and who can we talk of racism now?”