Sharuko On Saturday
THERE was a time, 10 years ago, when Wicknell Chivayo would call me, almost on a daily basis, and it all appeared quite normal.
During those days, I could even afford to miss some of his calls, and it was all quite normal and, still, he would not stop calling.
Today, when I tell my colleagues about all this stuff, they laugh at me as if, like Killer T when he has one drink too many, I have drifted into madness.
Back then, Wicknell had just come into the trenches of our mainstream football administration.
He had just struck his US$1 million sponsorship deal with Philip Chiyangwa, which was all sealed on a single piece of paper.
Chiyangwa had just come into the game after his gamble to become the ZIFA president, and somehow won overwhelming endorsement from the Councillors.
Their deal, which was a personal sponsorship of Chiyangwa, was as unique as the two colourful larger-than-life characters who sealed it.
For some reason, Wicknell — being the schemer that he was — identified me as a key player in his grand plans and quickly started warming up to me.
On the occasions that we met, he probably spoke 90 percent of the time, while I did all the listening, even though he was clear that he considered me to be more knowledgeable in this game than he was.
Wicknell didn’t initially strike me as someone who was a football man.
I wasn’t even sure whether he knew the number of substitutes who were allowed to be fielded in a game.
But whatever doubts I had about Wicknell’s commitment to the game were gradually quashed by his investment in the game. In February that year, he bought a brand new US$75 000 Toyota Hilux D4D truck for Kalisto Pasuwa to use during his discharge of duties as the Warriors coach.
He then acquired a similar vehicle for Shadreck Mlauzi to use during the discharge of his duties as the Mighty Warriors coach.
In that very year, Mlauzi and his Mighty Warriors made history when they became the first, and only, Zimbabwean national football team to compete at the Olympic Games.
And, as fate would have it, Wicknell would die, exactly 10 years down the line, on the very day one of our national teams would be involved in an Olympic Games qualifier.
Last Wednesday, the Young Warriors hosted their Mauritian counterparts in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics qualifier at the National Sports Stadium.
About half-an-hour into that game, according to police estimates, the helicopter that was flying Wicknell back to his home in Harare, after a visit to his rural home, crashed near Marondera.
Everyone on board that helicopter, including his wife Lucy, their two pilots, and a security aide, died in that horror crash.
We saw a number of former and current football stars visiting Wicknell’s home in Gletwyn to pay their condolences in what was a powerful image of their respect and appreciation of his contribution to our game.
The legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika, the golden voice of our football and its most authoritative source, also paid his condolences. And, so did the entire Highlanders and Scottland teams — both the senior and academy sides — while the most powerful man at Dynamos, Bernard Marriot, also paid his condolence message.
Even Benjani Mwaruwari was given leave by his employers at Bosso to miss their league match against Ngezi Platinum Stars to attend Wicknell’s burial on Thursday.
SEVEN, THE MAGICAL NUMBER, IT KEPT APPEARING
There are some things which we struggle to explain in life but, in a way, they appear to have a hidden meaning.
I noted in an analytical article I did for our sister newspaper, H-Metro, earlier this week that a number, which is quite special in football, has been dominating the game since Wicknell’s death.
It’s the number SEVEN.
It’s Cristiano Ronaldo’s iconic jersey number and has been since he inherited it from Luis Figo in the Portuguese senior national team in May 2008.
I noted that even that jersey number was given to Rafael Leao in the past week.
I noted that on Wednesday, on the SEVENTH day after the helicopter crash, the remains of the businessman and his wife were brought to their Gletwyn mansion.
I noted that the Young Warriors, who were in action on the very day he died, completed a crushing win over Mauritius in their Olympics qualifier on Tuesday night (6-1 on aggregate).
The total number of goals scored in both legs was SEVEN.
I noted that Chivayo was a key figure in the introduction of the US$25 million Munhumutapa Challenge Cup and the three quarter-finals in Harare and Bulawayo, where he had sponsored clubs, produced SEVEN goals (three for FC Platinum and four for CAPS and Hunters).
I noted that three of the quarter-final battles were decided by the penalty shoot-out lottery and SEVEN penalties were missed in these games.
I noted that ZIFA loves hiring coaches from Croatia, and the latest is Mighty Warriors gaffer Stella Gotal. In the seven days between the day Chivayo died, and the day his remains were brought home, the Croatia senior men’s national team crashed to their biggest defeat in history — a SEVEN-goal humiliation at the hands of England on Saturday. I noted that a Spanish coach, Marc Sanchez, guided the Young Warriors to success over Mauritius over two legs, which produced a total of SEVEN goals. His country’s Under-21 side also scored SEVEN goals in their 7-1 win over Romania on Tuesday night. I noted that two other teams scored SEVEN goals in their wins in the Euro Under-21 Championship matches on Tuesday night – France (7-1 win over Switzerland) and Austria (7-1 win over Wales).
Even Argentina scored SEVEN goals in a humiliation of Burkina Faso in a friendly match.
Then, one of our readers responded to all this and told me that he noticed that Wicknell was 43 at the time of his death.
He said he added FOUR and THREE and the answer was SEVEN. That’s life, he told me; there are some signals which are sent to us, which we don’t seem to understand.
WICKNELL’S ENDURING LEGACY TO OUR FOOTBALL
Wicknell’s ensuring legacy to our football will not be the US$1 million deal he signed with Chiyangwa when the property tycoon won the ticket to be the ZIFA boss.
Neither will it be the cars that he bought for Pasuwa and Mlauzi to use during their time as national team coaches, or the cars he gave to Marriot, Benjani and the Bosso leadership. It won’t be the millions he poured into Highlanders which, according to the Bosso leadership, amounted to around US$2 million in the past two years — which was a huge lifeline for the club.
Instead, his biggest legacy to our football will always be his late intervention, in December 2015, to pay the US$180 000 which was owed to coach Tom Saintfiet, who was deported after taking care of one training session with the Warriors.
The Belgian was deported for working without having been given a work permit and, while his romance with the Warriors ended under a cloud of confusion and humiliation, he decided to pursue compensation at FIFA.
Somehow, ZIFA kept ignoring FIFA warnings to address the Saintfiet case and pay him US$180 000, just like the way they did when FIFA ordered them to pay Valinhos US$68 000.
The Valinhos case came at a huge cost for Zimbabwe as the Warriors were barred from taking part in the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
We don’t have a good record when it comes to the World Cup qualifiers, with only Fabich’s Dream Team writing a beautiful story for us when they came within a win, in 90 minutes, of a place at the finals.
But losing on the pitch is better than the humiliation of being barred from the qualifiers, and this is the embarrassment we suffered during the 2018 World Cup qualifiers. An entire proud nation being suspended from playing in the World Cup qualifying matches because of a US$68 000 debt. In December 2015, we were on the verge of being suspended from the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, which would have meant that we would have two successive World Cup qualifying campaigns. The debt was even bigger, this time around, as it was roughly THREE times what had resulted in us being barred from the 2018 World Cup qualifiers.
The clock was ticking; the window which had been opened by FIFA for us to clear the debt would close in a week and, as had happened in the Valinhos case, we didn’t have a clue, as a football family, about what we would do to deal with the crisis.
Then, Wicknell came along, Chiyangwa’s friend, his young brother, and the US$180 000 was found and wired to Saintfiet’s lawyers.
Just like that, our 2022 World Cup campaign was saved by a man who, at that stage, was someone we considered a stranger to our game.
That intervention came exactly SEVEN years after Valinhos signed a deal to become the Warriors coach.
To God Be The Glory
Peace to the GEPA Chief, the Big Fish, George Norton, Daily Service, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and all the Chakari-boys still in the struggle.
Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!
Antoniooooooooooooo!
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