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Sikhumbuzo Moyo Acting Sports Editor
ZIMBABWEAN soccer clubs have been warned against impulse buying of players but instead invest in junior development. The call was made by two administrators who also engaged in impulse buying during their time when they ran clubs in the Premier Soccer League.Delma Lupepe and Chris Sambo were once in charge of flamboyant clubs AmaZulu and Blackpool respectively. Both clubs are now defunct. They believe that impulse buying can be deadly to clubs.
Local businessman and former AmaZulu president, Lupepe whose entry into the mainstream Zimbabwean football at the turn of the millennium saw players valuations sky-rocketing, said buying of players does not bring success as believed by some clubs. Instead, he said it causes a lot of problems to the clubs.
“Clubs, especially long-established ones, should have vibrant junior set-ups where they will be able to tap from. This business of buying players for the sake of buying does not help. If I was still in football now, I would be investing heavily in juniors than do what some of these clubs are now doing,” said Lupepe.
He compared impulse buying of players to musical chairs that only change tunes but remain in one place.
“Clubs seem to believe that buying any player simply because that player is deemed to be good somehow guarantees success. I can tell you now that in fact the opposite could be true, you will be going round and round and achieving nothing,” said Lupepe.
He said many junior teams have collapsed because youngsters would have lost the zeal to play since many of them would not be promoted to the senior team, with clubs preferring to rely on their cheque books to buy established players.
Speaking from his base in Harare, Chris Sambo, who was one of the directors at the now-defunct Blackpool, a club that at one time reportedly hired 12 posh cars to carry their players for a league match in Bulawayo, said teams should buy players on a need-to-buy basis not “because you have the money and resources.”
“It can be very disastrous to both the club and the player. I believe clubs should have trials where they will be able to assess players but not this business of just bringing in players even if you have equally good players in that position,” said Sambo, a former Premier Soccer League chief executive officer.
He added: “From my own personal experience at Blackpool, we did it, where even directors would buy players without the knowledge of coaches but what did it do to the team, nothing. It affected us badly and it does not guarantee success at all,” said Sambo.
Football journalist, Thandazani Zimbwa described the impulse buying frenzy by clubs as “funny.”
“I note that some of our clubs are buying players because it’s ‘buying time’ as it were, even if they might not really need to. Most of them will talk of re-building but strangely when their houses are almost complete they start afresh and I think it’s rather dangerous,” said Zimbwa.
Online Reporter