admin
EXACTLY 10 years ago, the then chief executive of the English Premier League, Richard Scudamore, was forced to confront a sensitive subject for the world’s richest top-flight football league.
Manchester United is not only the biggest but it is the most successful club in Premier League history and the Red Devils attract more fans, to their home matches, than any other club.
Under Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United transformed themselves into the dominant club in the English Premiership but when the Scotsman retired, the warning signs started to flash.
David Moyes took over but by March 2014, Manchester United were seventh on the table after a very disappointing campaign. Scudamore said Manchester United’s troubles were harming the English top-flight league’s worldwide brand.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” said Scudamore. “When your most popular club isn’t doing as well, that costs you interest and audience in some places. There are lots of fans around the world who wish Manchester United were winning it again.”
Scudamore could have been speaking about Dynamos and the massive influence that the Glamour Boys have in terms of the health of the domestic Premiership.
Dynamos are the biggest, and most successful, football club in this country.
The Glamour Boys have been going through a very bad patch, for a decade, and have not won the league championship since they were crowned champions in 2014. That title was the fourth on the bounce during a dominant era when Dynamos were crowned champions in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.
But those glory days are now fading from memory as DeMbare stagger from one bad season to the other.
The domestic Premiership will begin the second phase of its campaign this weekend but it’s fair to say that Dynamos will not win the championship this season. This has had a massive impact in dissolving spectator interest in the domestic Premiership, especially in Harare where most of the PSL games are now being played before virtually empty stadia.
We have the biggest fixture in the league at Rufaro on Sunday, Dynamos vs Highlanders, but there is no buzz about that game in Harare.
We will be surprised if we can get let’s say 7000 people at Rufaro on Sunday and this is a game which, in the past, would attract an average of 30 000 fans.
The majority of Dynamos fans have chosen to stay at home rather than suffer from expectation that their team will succeed when the reality is that it’s likely to fail.
This has been happening for the last 10 years and there are no signs that things will change soon.
You can’t blame the fans because it’s very clear that DeMbare lack leadership and the Marriot family, which took full ownership of the club in 2014, are leading it down a slippery slope to its destruction.
This week, all the media attention was on the Dynamos players refusing to train to press for the payment of their allowances, signing-on fees and winning bonuses.
Without a competitive Dynamos, the domestic PSL is doomed.
Online Reporter