adminA true genius, who was good enough to win a contract with a Belgian club in the ’80s when doors into Europe were not as wide open as they are today for African players, Chunga lived his football dream and scaled the heights.
Since his retirement from the game, Chunga has invested all his energies into coaching, specialising in the development of emerging talent, and in 2009, he finally earned his stripes when he led little Gunners to the Premiership title.
But for all his passion to play a big role in the development of football in this country, Chunga has certainly met a number of big obstacles, many of which have been erected to try and frustrate him out of the system.
His brutal and frank assessment of administrators’ shortcomings have won him more enemies than friends and, when he dared criticise Zifa on national television, he paid for that by being axed from his role as assistant coach of the Warriors.
Soon, recommendations followed that only coaches with at least O’ Levels, would be considered for the national team coaching posts and, to many analysts, this was all part of a grand plan to push people like Chunga out of the big picture.
But you can’t keep a good man down.
Chunga and his colleagues have launched a revolutionary coaches’ representative body, the Soccer Coaches Union of Zimbabwe, which – in just a few months – has blazed a trail in the way such organisations should operate.
Working closely with his colleagues – Newsome Mutema, Nesbert Saruchera, Eric Aisam, Brenna Msiska and Jack Mutandagai – Chunga has shaped Scuz into a body that has given football coaches in the country a sense of pride in what they do for a living.
While the mainstream Zimbabwe Soccer Coaches Association, led by Bekhi Nyoni and seemingly favoured by the Zifa board, has merely existed in name only, Scuz has been vibrant, taking its gospel to the coaches and telling them that they deserve a fair deal in the fruits that are picked on our football fields.
When Callisto Pasuwa and the Dynamos management fell out, because of serious differences in negotiations for a new contract, Scuz stepped in at the right time and brought the two parties together, playing a big role in the three-year deal that was thrashed at the end.
Not surprisingly, Nyoni and his Zisca were watching from a distance.
A true coaches’ representative body has to be seen to be working, in the interests of the coaches, and once its leadership plunges into the trenches to fight for the cause of the coaches, its battles make a big impression on the minds of the coaches.
That is why we have seen Scuz being embraced by some of the biggest names in the country’s football coaching family – Willard Masinkila-Khumalo, Friday Phiri, Solomon Kaseke, Madinda Ndlovu, Luke Masomere, Carlos Max, Biggie Zuze, Misheck Chidzambwa, Lloyd Chitembwe, to name but just a few. That is also the reason why Scuz has also been endorsed by some of the greatest names to play the game in this country – Peter Ndlovu, Adam Ndlovu, Stanford “Stix” Mtizwa, Stanley Chirambadare, Douglas Mloyi, Jimmy Mbewe, Zenzo Moyo – as the true representative of coaches in this country.
Today Scuz, working in partnership with prominent Harare doctor, Prosper Chonzi, will launch a unique and landmark project to provide free medical cover to coaches under their stable, and their immediate families, for the next six months.
Under the partnership, Scuz members, together with their wives and two children under the age of 18, will be able to get free consultation and treatment at certain medical centres identified by Dr Chonzi. It’s a provisional agreement and the Scuz leadership believe in six months time, when their deal with Chonzi expire, they would have generated enough money in their coffers to put their members on full medical aid cover.
It’s such initiatives that show that Chunga and his group are thinking outside the box, in terms of improving the welfare of coaches, and why they deserve all the support they have been getting from the organisations that have embraced their vision.
When you have a leadership that puts a lot of value in the health of its membership then you know you have the right leaders and Chunga and his colleagues at Scuz have hit the right notes and they deserve everyone’s support to build a strong and true representative body of coaches.
Already they have spoken to Nyaradzo Funeral Services and you can see where it’s likely to add up to. What is so refreshing about Scuz is the leadership’s relentless battle to unite all the coaches and, barely a week after staging what was a very successful festival in Bulawayo, they are off to Mutare this coming weekend and they will then go to Masvingo and Chinhoyi.
The coaches have spoken and there is no question that Scuz is now the true representative body of coaches in this country and maybe Nyoni and his colleagues at Zisca will do well to join what has now become the mainstream representative body of the coaches.
Chunga might not have gone the distance in his educational studies but there is no questioning the fact that when it comes to football matters, he knows what he is doing and sometimes substance is better than a number of degrees earned by a man who offers nothing to his constituency.
Scuz are leading the way and hopefully the Footballers Union of Zimbabwe will also follow suit and we will also see a response from the Zimbabwe Soccer Referees’ Association.
Online Reporter