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The Bob Super Cup, now in its third year, is a special football tournament that is staged every February to mark President Mugabe’s birthday.
President Mugabe was born on February 21 in 1924 and the inaugural Super Cup clash featured bitter Harare rivals Dynamos and CAPS United at Rufaro with DeMbare prevailing 2-1.
The following year, the competition had four teams taking part with Hwange and FC Platinum clashing in the final which the platinum miners won.
In the third edition of the competition and, probably the most explosive to date, Dynamos and Highlanders featured in a two-legged clash with the Harare giants winning the first leg at Barbourfields 2-1 before they turned on the power to thrash Bosso 4-0 at Rufaro.
This year’s competition also saw the organisers upping the stakes and paying a record US$110 000 cheque to the winners while Bosso got US$70 000 for being runners-up.
But the organisers of the football tournament, who are also in charge of a golf competition that is designed to mark President Mugabe’s birthday celebrations, yesterday said they had been disturbed to note that a basketball tourney using a similar name to their three-year-old brand had been organised.
Stan Kasukuwere, chairman of the Bob Super Cup organising committee, said the emergence of a basketball tournament, using the same identity as their football and golf competitions, had caused “some confusion and unease on the part of our sponsors and on our part’’.
Kasukuwere said while they had no qualms about Zimbabweans coming up with different initiatives to celebrate the President’s birthday, it was imperative that organisers of such competitions understood the issues related to branding and rights.
The Harare businessman said his committee was “not in anyway involved with the organisers of the basketball tournament that is being spearheaded by Tendai “T-Buns’’ Zhakata.
“While we appreciate that people from different spheres of life can come up with their ways to mark our President’s birthday we are saying the Bob Super Cup brand has been our initiative for the last three years and one cannot just come up overnight and organise a hockey or basketball tournament by the same identity without consulting us because as has been the case to date it has caused confusion with our partners and the corporate entities that have been sponsoring the Bob 89 football tournament.
“In as much as the basketball competition is a noble idea, we believe Zhakata and his committee could have found their own identity and have their own brand after all President Mugabe is known by a number of names like Gushungo, or Karigamombe.
“Now I am receiving numerous calls from some our sponsors seeking clarification on which events we actually organising.
“Of course ,we would have loved to oganise many sporting events like rugby or cricket but for now we are content with organising the football and the golf and we will probably expand with time,’’ Kasukuwere said.
Basketball administrator Zhakata launched his version of the Bob 89 event at a function in Harare on Tuesday night and is now looking at staging the tournament the event in the capital.
The inaugural Bob 89 Basketball tournament, which had been originally slated for Mazoe Boys High School, has now been shifted to the basketball in courts Harare next weekend.
Chairman of the Bob 89 Basketball Tournament, Tendai Zhakata, said they decided to change the venue after realising that more clubs may find it easy to travel to Harare than to Mazoe.
“We had wanted to host the tournament at Mazoe in Mashonaland Central because this is the province that hosted President Mugabe’s 21st February Movement main celebrations.
“But there could be a challenge in logistics since the tournament was conceived at a short notice and we now feel that Harare will be able to attract more people from across various sections,” said Zhakata.
Online Reporter