dyton mupawaenda
Langton Nyakwenda
TWENTY-SIX years ago, at around this time, Dynamos were still basking in glory after becoming the first Zimbabwean club to reach the CAF Champions League final.
DeMbare lost 4-2 on aggregate against Cote d’Ivoire giants ASEC Mimosas, in a two legged final.
The first leg ended 0-0 at the National Sports in Harare on November 28, 1998, before Dynamos crumbled in the return fixture at Stade Felix Houphouet-Boigny in Abidjan on December 12.
Makwinji Soma-Phiri scored DeMbare’s first goal in that final with Ghanaian George Owusu chipping in with the second.
Soma-Phiri remains the only Zimbabwean to score in a CAF Champions League final.
It is a special record that he has kept for the past 26 years as no other Zimbabwean club has reached the final since 1998. Soma-Phiri is now aiming to break another record.
He wants to be the first ex-professional footballer to lead the Zimbabwe Football Association.
“Doctors’ associations are run by doctors, lawyers run their own organisations, politicians run their politics and so do musicians.
“But in football we allow non-football people to run our football.
“We should be running our own football,” Soma-Phiri told Zimpapers Sports Hub yesterday.
He added:
“We need to reclaim our football and make it the family game it used to be back then.
“Remember back in the day fans would pack the National Sports but now there seems to be little interest in football.
“We need to correct that. We need to transform our game so that fans can come back. We need unity, this is not about Makwinji winning, it’s about the good of the game.
“Everyone has to play a role, we have to fix this game together.”
Soma-Phiri has been running businesses in Harare and he now wants to join mainstream football administration. He hinted about this route in an interview with The Sunday Mail back in 2020.
He was saddened by the fact the Dynamos have failed to transform into a continental powerhouse.
Four years later, Soma-Phiri still has the same sentiments.
“Imagine since 1998 no Zimbabwean team has reached the CAF Champions League final. As a country, we should have built on that achievement but sadly people have watched as the situation deteriorated.
“Our maiden appearance at the Africa Cup of Nations finals was back in 2004 but more than 20 years later we are yet to progress beyond the group stages.
“It’s like our football has remained stuck in a pit. Now is the time to restart everything, from grassroots development to the empowerment of the girl child.”
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter