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One school of thought defines a role model as a person whose behaviour, for example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people.
Such is how society looks up to its soccer stars. With the scintillating skills they display week in, week out in stadia, many people, especially the young, aspire to be like their favourite soccer players.
The world over, soccer players are held in high esteem, which is why we expect an unblemished lifestyle from them.
It is disheartening that some of our local soccer stars do not seem to know the profound impact they have on young people.
We have in mind one soccer star, Mthulisi Maphosa. This is a man who has played soccer at the highest level.
He has won the league championship with Monomotapa, played in the African Champions League, earned caps with the national team and featured for a popular team in the DRC.
Right now he is playing for Highlanders, the oldest team in the country with hundreds of thousands of passionate supporters. Many impressionable young people look up to him as their local hero, the boy from the hood who made it.
Off the field, Maphosa is appearing in news headlines for all the wrong reasons. He seems intent on being the bad boy of the local soccer scene.
Maphosa has been in the news for violence-related issues on numerous occasions.
At one time he did the abominable and assaulted his mother. On another occasion, he ripped open a man’s stomach with a knife after a disagreement.
He was also alleged to have assaulted some bouncers at a hang-out in the western suburbs after an altercation over wearing a hat into the facility.
Now he is in court for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend’s friend and her boyfriend at the weekend.
It is sad that in all the instances where Maphosa has been violent, his team, Highlanders, has been silent.
Maphosa stands accused of gender based violence, a serious plague in our society that President Mugabe spoke against at commemorations to mark International Women’s Day this year.
If Highlanders remain mum while their players beat up their mothers and girlfriends, what message are they sending about the scourge of domestic violence which has seen some women lose their lives? Are they saying that gender based violence is okay?
We fear that some young supporters of Highlanders will think that violence can be used to solve differences if the team continues to let players like Maphosa get away with this gross misconduct.
The fact that most cases involving Maphosa have been withdrawn before they are prosecuted is neither here and there. We will not speculate why his victims chose to withdraw such serious cases before he faced the full wrath of the law.
But we believe that Highlanders, and indeed all soccer teams, have a role to play to ensure that their players are true role models by acting decisively on anti-social behaviour.
There is need to come up with guidelines on how to deal with players who bring the beautiful game into disrepute by their rowdy behaviour off the field.
Local sports associations need to take a leaf from some sports organisations overseas where professional players have been suspended for violence towards their partners and children.
Sports can have a powerful influence in teaching society against domestic and any other form of violence.
derick.khumalo