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Sharuko On Saturday
IT was such a beautiful time – Reinhard Fabisch was just starting to write his story, the Dream Team was just starting to take shape and the Warriors had just beaten the Pharaohs in Harare.
One of us, Agent Sawu, had suddenly exploded to become the deadliest forward in African football – scoring five goals in five World Cup qualifiers in just two glorious months.
That was between December 20, ’92 and February 28, ’93.
He started that amazing run with one of the goals in our 2-1 win over the Pharaohs and was on target on February 28, ’93, in our 1-2 defeat in Cairo.
Our profile, as the best of the emerging crop of African national football teams, determined to take on the traditional heavyweights and knock them off their perch, was growing.
Even the Egyptians now needed to employ all the dark arts, including swinging missiles at Fabisch and Bruce Grobbelaar, and leaving them drenched in blood, for them to get a chance of beating us in Cairo.
They didn’t even believe that 100 000 fans, inside the Cairo International Stadium, and Hossam Hassan and company could be good enough to beat us, leaving them to resort to dirty tactics.
Of course, they ‘won’, coming from behind to scrap a 2-1 victory which was dressed in such infamy it looked more like a Stone Age contest than a World Cup qualifier, the FIFA bosses had no choice but to nullify the result.
In a way, it was also my story.
I had just arrived at this grand old newspaper on November 1, ’92.
And, just like Fabisch and his Dream Team, I was still a sports journalist in-the-making, still considerably raw, still incredibly ambitious and still with a lot to learn to survive in the brutal jungles of this profession.
It was around this beautiful period for our football that the mass rebellion against ZIFA, which eventually led to the formation of the domestic Premiership, was well and truly underway.
Morrison Sifelani, Chris Sibanda, Wieslaw Grabowski and Victor Zvobgo were the faces of the rebellion – fearless individuals who took on the might of ZIFA and found a way to pull their clubs out of the direct control of the association.
Of course, like in every revolution, there were some sell-outs.
They were led by those who were in charge of Black Aces, a club which wielded considerable clout back then, having won the league championship in ’92.
Ironically, one of those Black Aces leaders was Alexander Douglas Smith, known largely as Alec Smith, who was the son of former Rhodesian Prime Minister, Ian Douglas Smith.
Alec died on January 19, 2006, after suffering a heart attack in the transit lounge of Heathrow International Airport in London while on his way back home after a Christmas family holiday in Norway.
By then, the domestic Premiership, the project which the likes of Alec had tried, and failed, to betray, was 13 years and counting and his beloved Aces had collapsed, five years earlier, in 2001.
Created from the ashes of Chibuku Shumba in ’77, Aces became the sporting image of Highfield and, at Gwanzura, the club we called Shaisa Mufaro created images that will last a lifetime.
Sifelani, the leader of the revolution which led to the formation of the PSL, also outlasted Alec in life, with the former Dynamos boss living another four years, after the Aces boss’ death.
A man whose life was shaped by football, Sifelani shattered the myth that a guy from Matabeleland could not become a Dynamos chairman and he was so successful he makes a mockery of the nonsense that Bernard Marriot is doing at the Glamour Boys.
Somehow, the football gods had to ensure that Sifelani would die in 2010, the only time the World Cup rolled into Africa, just across the Limpopo in Mzansi.
Victor Zvobgo would actually live longer and it was not until February this year that he lost his battle against a kidney ailment – exactly 31 years after the first ball was kicked in the Premiership in ’93.
Chris Sibanda is still alive, at his base in the UK, and is still the fiery fighter he was, he even managed to beat a complicated health scare which saw him needing a five-hour operation.
Grabowski is also still alive, still identifying and nurturing talent but, after his Darryn T expelled from the PSL, he is unlikely to have any kind words for the project he formed with his colleagues.
THE PSL HAS BEEN SELLING US A DUMMY
Fabisch is also late and so is Mercedes Sibanda, Rahman Gumbo, Adam Ndlovu, Paul Gundani and Benjamin Nkonjera, the midfielder who was the favourite of the German coach.
I’m also still around but we have also lost some of the colleagues who were part of our Sports Desk at The Herald and were witnesses to the revolution which led to the formation of the PSL.
Lovemore Musharavati was the joker in the pack, a man seemingly born to make you laugh, Philip Magwaza, just like Alec Smith, was an Aces fan, Sam Marisa was a Gweru United fan and Tendai Ndemera once played for Dynamos.
We lost all these colleagues, at one point or the other, and they all took memories of the PSL revolution to their graves.
At the height of their revolution, Sifelani and his colleagues turned our Sports Desk into something like their command centre where, every evening, they would come to give us an update of what they had done to enable us to keep our readers updated about the developments.
They told us football in this country would never be the same, the PSL clubs would be richer and healthier, the players would reap huge benefits because the clubs would not be remitting huge sums to ZIFA and it would be something like paradise.
But, three decades into the PSL project, the truth is that the clubs were fed a BIG LIE, they were duped into swallowing a project built on fantasy, instead of reality, and their divorce from ZIFA’s direct supervision has not brought about the benefits they were promised.
The damning verdict, after three decades of the PSL, is that this is a grand project which has dismally FAILED and its clubs, including the traditional giants which led the revolution –Dynamos, Highlanders and CAPS United – are worse off than they have ever been in their lifetime.
The financial challenges which have dogged Dynamos and CAPS United this week are a reflection of how the PSL, as a project that was meant to improve the financial lot of the clubs, has failed miserably over the last three decades.
Yes, our economic challenges as a nation haven’t helped either.
But, for instance, a club like Dynamos have a sponsor who takes care of the salaries for players and coaches and another one who provides them with transport, and fuel, plus some commission from their partnership.
All that DeMbare should do is raise allowances and winning bonuses and, after winning just five games all season, that should not be an issue if there were some direct benefits from their PSL membership.
But, there is NOTHING that Dynamos benefit from being members of the PSL, they don’t get a monthly grant for their membership, as is the case in other countries, the cost of playing in the championship race dwarfs the benefits of winning the league and they even suffered significant losses for winning the Chibuku Super Cup.
When your biggest and most successful club sneezes, the way Dynamos did this week, and you don’t even get a statement from the PSL, you start to know that there is some form of disconnect between the league and its membership.
When these clubs broke from ZIFA they told us they were fighting to take control of their finances.
Now, these clubs are even made to pay the cost of the tickets they get from the PSL to sell at their match days, a cost one would have expected the league to absorb if it, indeed, was a league formed to improve the welfare of the clubs.
Questions have to be asked as to what the PSL is really for if the league, which does not run the expenses which its clubs have to deal with on a daily basis, doesn’t see the need for it to help them by, at least, footing the costs of the tickets sold at Match Days?
In this age and era, where a lot of things have gone paperless, should we be sticking to old things like physical tickets, which come at a cost which is being passed to these struggling clubs, rather than just go digital and someone can just come with confirmation on his mobile phone?
If the PSL receives a certain chunk of the sponsorship for administrative purposes, isn’t that the money that it should use to meet some of these costs rather than passing them to the clubs?
I’m a Chegutu Pirates fan and the reality for us is that for all the grand celebrations, which followed our promotion to the PSL, we are far worse off as a club right now than what we were in Division One.
We were sold a dummy that securing a PSL place was the ultimate mission but we can see that there are no benefits, whatsoever, of being a member of the top-flight league save for that our name now appears more frequently in newspapers than was the case in the past.
If the PSL had a mortuary, it would be full of clubs which collapsed, after being sold the same dummy, and administrators who will tell you that, in their afterlife, they don’t want to hear about this league again.
Think about John Nyamasoka, think about Eric Rosen, think about the Blackpool boys and, even among those who are still alive, talk to Lovemore Gijima Msindo, and they will give you a damning verdict of the PSL.
It’s a league that has been lucky that most of the scrutiny has gone to ZIFA and poor Lincoln Mutasa is lampooned for failing to meet the objectives which FIFA set for him in one year.
We forget we have a so-called top-flight league which, in 31 years, has not met even one of the objectives which its founding fathers came up with and the majority of its members are just walking shadows, with nothing to show for their membership.
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! Text Feedback: 0772545199, WhatsApp: 0772545199, E-mail: [email protected]
You can also interact with me on the ZTV football programme, Game Plan, where I join the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika on Wednesdays
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