The Zifa saga and a robbed generation

Robert Mukondiwa

When we pursue a goal or a profession it is because we dream of performing at the apex. The summit. The very zenith of the chosen field at the highest level possible.

It is called ‘dreaming’. It is a thing that humans do.

So when you are tasked with running an area that constitutes someone's dream, it is like being a giver of life, if you are competent, or a hangman, if you are inept.

For thousands of young Zimbabweans, the dream is to be like Peter Nsukuzonke Ndlovu. Not buying a minibus for your kids to travel together, but in his playing as the first African to play and score in top flight football in the United Kingdom.

It was a big deal for us to see our culture represented in England and those who had good feet dreamt of getting there one day.

We dreamt of Continental Football at the highest stages which is why Memory Mucherahowa’s Dynamos class of ’98 are gods for some of us and a magical story.

The names Reinhard Fabisch and Sunday Marimo (he’s still Marimo to me, zvekuti Chidzambwa rangova drama) elicit fantastical tales as we smelt and eventually touched continental football with them at the front.

To us national pride is at stake and a national uniting dream is at stake. We dream of going to the World Cup as participants in our lifetime.

But to many kids in the premiership, reaching that stage of football is not a dream alone but it means the difference between life and death. They want to be seen and appreciated and then make a livelihood out of selling the dreams that their gifted feet conjure in the bedazzled eyes of the beholders. Us.

So, when the sport of the marginalised and poor. The national sport is held to ransom by a Gang of evil nonchalant devils massaging their egos reeking of the smell of fire and brimstone from hades which should be their home, then that is a cruelty beyond imagination. They are not only stealing from the coffers of the boys as they sit and play in a pariah league, with pariah officials in a sporting-football-pariah state, they are stealing those boys’ lives.

The disdain seems to come from this ‘what will they do to us’ approach by those serpents running or rather shutting things down. (Thanks to Holy Ten I can call people snakes and not feel at all mean.)

They can misuse their power with impunity because they feel invincible and untouchable. To an extent they are. Because for years people have let their national sport be defecated upon by the putrid orifices of these people.

Growing up in primary school Thursday was film day and we would be shown the Doctor Seuss ‘Cat In A Hat’ films.

One of them had two people walking along the path and when they got before each other because of their bloated egos. So, none made way. Summer, winter, autumn and spring came and went but still none moved and as a result they both lost out. They were teaching our young minds the art of compromise and giving in once in a while. A lesson these clearly never learnt from whatever schools they attended if at all they did attend or are indeed kindergarten dropouts that they act like.

FIFA is powerful. Village lamppost tortoises may continue to hold the nation ransom but FIFA will hold sway. Look, I don’t even like Felton but he is the man in charge and he has a bigger brother looking over him and that brother is called FIFA. The other one is called the law. A constitution at FIFA. A way things are done. Some may want to effect change using dubious extra judicial means and pressure but FIFA is not a village. The sooner we fall in place the better.

Felton et all will also not resign. The end result is that our children will die without having used their talent at the highest levels. They will always think they could have made it to the top. They’ll always say ‘what if I had been given the best chance perhaps, I would have been the next Ronaldo!’ (Zvekuti Messi izvo rango drama).

However, we will never know and they will never forgive us for our collective evil for not standing up for them as some evil anarchists were selling the game down the river.

Takangoti zete.

It’s like not paying exam fees for a child after they’ll have studied. They’ll always link us to their not having good chances in life because they did not graduate from high school.

Now, North Korea is a less of a pariah in football than Zimbabwe! Who would have thought? But here we are. Bottom of the country name alphabet and bottom of the world football story behind Mars and Venus even!

What that says effectively is that if in real countries like our back garden South Africa want to host a football tournament of donkeys our coaches are not qualified to coach there and our officials are not qualified even as part of the ball boys I suspect.

I wonder what would have happened if we had played with swimming like that? Our darling Kirsty would not have been the most successful African Olympic athlete and we would have never smelt that sweet smell of victory and national pride.

So, in short. A musician dreams of winning the most celebrated gongs in the world. A swimmer wants to compete at the Olympics (like Kirsty). A tennis player wants to conquer Wimbledon. A golfer dreams of the Open like Nick Price (who sadly missed the Masters despite setting a course record at Augusta in 1986-a nine under-par 63) And yet the leagues kids play in North Korea have a better chance of them playing on the world stage than a brilliant chap playing for Dynamos today. We have a Mickey Mouse league recognised by nobody. A joke. An imaginary league. Good as non-existent. Unseen. You stand a chance of seeing the equator running across the planet than you do of seeing the ‘realness’ of the Zimbabwean game. It is more imaginary than the equator.

Football has however not gone to the dogs. Far from it. Maybe instead the dogs have gone to football. Except that is not the case. I had a long and intense chat with the dogs and it turns out they don’t want to be associated with Zimbabwean football. The dogs say it is an embarrassment worse than Catholic excommunication.

So, who would want to showcase their talent in limbo. In Gehenna, in Hades? Mwana waani anoda kutambiswa mahumbwe? Aiwa tambisaiwo venyu tione. And some moron thinks we should charge top dollar for that kindergarten league. Up to $20 United States dollars! For imaginary nonsense? Baba vangu chingwa vakafira mu tea!

That’s why we need sportspersons to run sports organisations and bodies because they fully understand and are empathetic to the…..oh wait….!

Anyway, on the plus side it's only a bunch of poor mostly rural and township kids who have been disadvantaged by the impasse so what’s the cost right?

Except it is in these small things that anger simmers.

Yet those ruling sport should know this;

“Every day is born a fool

One who thinks that he can rule

One who says tomorrow’s mine

One who wakes one day to find

The prison doors open

The shackles broken

And chaos in the streets

Everybody sing we’re free free free free free!”

Tracy Chapman-Freedom Now

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