Preparations for soccer tournaments need to be adequately financed, accurately managed and the facilities need routine maintenance and upgrading. Players also need to have their morale sufficiently geared up and need to be well trained. In Zimbabwe all these are missing.
Our sportsmanship draws from the sociological aspects of our life, how we handle defeat or victory, or more generally how one respects the opponent. Sport in Zimbabwe has been neglected at all levels and in all these aspects. How can our stars go the gym to work out if they are hungry? They can’t feed their families. With too much pressure on our players’ minds how does anyone sane expect them to perform well?
People like Leo Mugabe have been at the helm of soccer administration for a long time – like his uncle who has been at the helm of government for three decades now. Through mismanagement Leo destroyed soccer while Robert Gabriel destroyed the economy and our very livelihoods.
Generally people who work well play well. With unemployment at 90% how can people play if they don’t work? They will first need money to feed themselves to have energy and build muscle and morale to play. They will also need money to travel to respective sport fields, to buy sporting gear, refreshments or to pay entrance fees to watch sport.
Entrance fees to watch soccer have generally been pegged so low as to accommodate more people who cannot afford due to poor remuneration and high unemployment levels. This is like adding fuel to an already burning fire. It will only mean lower soccer standards for our players due to poor remuneration. There will be little money for maintenance and upgrading of soccer facilities.
Zimbabwe soccer players earn on average $1000 a month. Some regional players are paid 100 times that much. I no longer rally behind the “worriers” for fear of constant disappointment, all the same I get terribly shocked by some naïve elements within the country who still think they can progress even to the group stage of the Africa cup on nations.
By killing the economy Zanu (PF) also killed sport along with other activities and disciplines. I grew up in Mufakose where there were many sporting facilities, for soccer, table tennis, volleyball, tennis and basketball just naming a few. Consequently we have had a number of stars from the area. Albeit to say these facilities had been developed and maintained by the Rhodesian government during a time when it was writhing under both heavy economic sanctions from the international community and also guerrilla warfare waged against it on two fronts.
Go to Mufakose and inspect these facilities today, they are all in tatters just like the economy and other infrastructure. – Zanda Shumba, Mutare
Post published in: Letters to the Editor