dyton mupawaenda
Sharuko on Saturday
IMAGINE a world being introduced to the beginning of the internet and watching as the first mobile cellular phone call was dialled.
That was in 1983.
That’s 40 years ago and it was a very different world to the one we have today.
It was a world that was being introduced to the first worldwide mobile telephone, the Motorola DynaTAC.
That was a huge mobile phone, weighing 1,13kgs and was 28 centimetres long.
It cost a cool US$3 393 but another decade would pass before it was developed further to be offered to the market for the public to buy.
It was a world that was being introduced, for the first time, to the darkness of the reality that a novel retrovirus was affecting people with HIV/AIDS.
This was revealed by two separate research groups led by Robert Gallo and Luc Montagniel who published their findings in the same issue of the journal Science.
This was the world that heard, for the first time, something called Microsoft Word.
A world where Scottish side Aberdeen could beat Real Madrid 2-1 in the final to win the European Cup Winners Cup.
That year, football said goodbye to the man who is widely regarded as the finest dribbler in the history of the game, when Garrincha, the two-time World Cup winner with Brazil, died.
I was in Grade Seven back then and felt the damaging impact of losing a close relative, for the first time, when my little sister, Margaret, passed away.
My parents named their next daughter Margaret, as if to provide them with a reminder of the one we lost and, today, she is a proud mother of three children.
That, in a way, tells you that 1983 was a long time ago and, for the record, Dynamos’ history back then was a story about the life and times of the 20 years they had been in existence.
Today, the Glamour Boys are celebrating their 60th anniversary.
That was the year Lincoln Mutasa was asked to take over as Dynamos chairman while also fulfilling his role as a good player down the right side of their defence.
Mutasa had honed his skills in the United Kingdom.
And, on his return home, he chose the Glamour Boys and it’s a testimony to his skills that he was good enough to make it in this All-Star DeMbare team.
As a leader, he was a huge success at DeMbare.
But, even by his wildest of imaginations, he would not have dreamt that, 40 years after his appointment as club chairman, he would return as the boss of domestic football.
Of course, he did by default, after the initial candidate fell by the wayside but that doesn’t take away the reality that he is now the head of ZIFA.
MUTASA IS TRAPPED IN 1983, NO DOUBT ABOUT THAT
Five months have passed since Mutasa was ushered into the hot seat by those who really control football from their base in Zurich, Switzerland.
A lot of the optimism, which greeted his arrival, after the miserable experiment with a man who thought there were many continents in Africa, appears to have faded away.
So far, the immediate conclusion appears to suggest that we handed the biggest role in local football leadership to a man who is still fascinated with the Motorola of 1983 in an era of the iPhone 15 ProMax.
That we sought leadership from someone still stuck in the music of ’83, still dancing to a song like ‘Mwana We Dangwe’ by the Marxist Brothers, when everyone else is dancing to Jah Prayzah’s Chiremerera.
If that is not the case, how then do we explain that Mutasa was nowhere to be seen when real football people converged at the National Sports Stadium for the Chibuku Super Cup semi-final showdown between Dynamos and CAPS United?
This was a special occasion because domestic football was returning to the capital, after months of being played elsewhere, and the city’s flagship battle was the one which was being played on that October day.
And, this was a match in which the winner stood a good chance of going all the way to represent Zimbabwe, in the CAF Confederation Cup next season, something which one would have expected would spike interest in a ZIFA boss.
He will probably argue that he watched the game away from the VIP stand of the giant stadium but it’s hard to provide such excuses when you become a serial absentee when important football events are held.
It’s hard to give him the benefit of doubt when he was missing when the domestic football fraternity held their annual get-together function in Harare where we honoured the latest winner of the Soccer Star of the Year award.
As the head of our football, this was his perfect environment, to meet his constituency given that those who attend it come from all over the country representing all the branches of our national game.
Some of them were not there when he became Dynamos chairman in 1983 and many of them were not born when his divorce with our game, in terms of its administration at the top level, happened in 1987.
For goodness sake, another three years would pass before Qadr Amini, the man who was crowned Soccer Star of the Year, was born on January 16, 1990.
And, another 18 years would pass before the 18-year-old Elton Chakona, who won the Rookie of the Year award at the gala, was born.
If all these guys thought they would use this awards night to meet the leader of their game, as should be the case, and discuss some issues which are affecting their welfare, then they were WRONG.
On January 15, next year, FIFA will honour their best players and coaches for the year and one thing that can be guaranteed will be that the organisation’s president, Gianni Infantino, will not only be there but will play a leading role in the proceedings.
If he doesn’t attend the show, Infantino knows that he will be slaughtered by the global media because it’s part of his responsibility to be there when the best performers in the game are honoured.
THE LODGERS WHO SNUBBED THE UNVEILING OF THEIR HOUSE
For Infantino not to be there will be deemed an insult to the players his organisation would be honouring and also an insult to the FIFA sponsors whose millions have been keeping football oiled.
At least, Infantino knows what the responsibilities of his role as FIFA boss demands.
The same cannot be said about our Lincoln Mutasa who felt being part of the crowd, which would witness the crowning moment of the latest King of domestic football, was either a waste of time or an occasion a notch lower than where his presence was needed.
For those of us who were there on that night it became very embarrassing to hear speaker after speaker acknowledge the presence of Mutasa, albeit in absentia.
It felt like this was an insult to Delta Beverages, the biggest sponsors of our football, who have been behind the Soccer Star of the Year since 1969.
He will probably say that ZIFA were well represented by Sikumbuzo Ndebele and Rose Mugadza.
But, he should know that there is a difference between them and him and that is the reason he was made the chairman and the others only came in as board members.
For the first time we have a ZIFA boss who is being paid a monthly salary by FIFA while the others, except for Kamambo who received a yearly allowance from CAF, were doing it as a community service.
Some say Mutasa’s salary from FIFA is about US$8 500 a month, although I am yet to confirm that this places a bigger degree of responsibility to the game, more than the other ZIFA bosses who came before him.
Then, on Sunday, Mutasa and his entire board decided not to turn up for the unveiling of the best new football stadium, built in this country, in the past three decades.
To imagine this is the same ZIFA board, who were forced to host Nigeria in Rwanda because we don’t have a stadium good enough to stage World Cup matches, the stupidity of their decision not to attend Sunday’s unveiling of the Heart Stadium is put into proper contest.
They didn’t have any shame to fly and host the Super Eagles at a rented facility, with some even reported to have taken their wives along for a joy ride, but somehow they were nowhere to be seen at the Heart Stadium on Sunday.
Is it because there were no out-of-pocket allowances for the unveiling of the Heart Stadium?
It’s shameful, no doubt about that, to be known as the lodgers who boycotted the unveiling of a house that had been built for them.
Maybe, in 1983, such things were acceptable.
To God Be The Glory!
Peace to the GEPA Chief, the Big Fish, George Norton, Daily Service, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and all the Chakariboys still in the struggle.
Come on Chegutu Pirates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Zaireeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
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