TO MY BROTHER NQOBILE MAGWIZI

Sharuko on Saturday

THIS time, last year, I wasn’t really sure whether we are moving forward, or going backwards, when it comes to the way our football was being run from the ZIFA headquarters.

This, in itself, was a huge indictment on Nqobile Magwizi, the Prince Charming who had arrived a few months earlier, with a smile that illuminates dark rooms and a hairstyle which was a throwback to the Afro years.

As if, in a way, he was a latter day copycat of Charles Mabika.

He calls himself CNN, I call him the legend.

The greatest of us all, the fountain of knowledge when it comes to Zimbabwean football, the powerful and irresistible golden voice which provides our national game with its motion picture soundtrack.

This is my letter to Nqobile Magwizi.

My brother, you arrived on the scene with your tailor-made designer business suits, usually blue in colour, just like Patrice Motsepe and in a way, just like the way Gianni Infantino usually dresses.

Just your appearance alone, your movie-star height, appeared to provide an element of assurance that you were the man who represented a significant, and necessary shift, from the turbulence of the immediate past in which ZIFA had been a mess.

Even before you said a word, you appeared a welcome shift from Felton Kamambo – the only ZIFA president to take his wife, his pastor and his family to the AFCON finals on a trip fully paid for by the Government.

Kamambo really set the bar very low, when it comes to the ZIFA presidency, and his time in charge was both a mockery and an insult to all the good work which the likes of Nelson Chirwa and Job Kadengu had done.

He was hopelessly out of depth at this level, the equivalent of a Grade One pupil being asked to explain the Pythagoras theorem.

Expecting that innocent pupil to know that in a right-angled triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the square of the other two sides.

Expecting that child to understand that the Pythagoras theorem is a fundamental relationship in Euclidean geometry between the three sides of a right triangle and all the stuff that go with such complicated mathematics.

That was the reason why Kamambo ended as a social media box office hit, for all the wrong reasons, as his regular gaffes kept exposing his severe limitations creating endless content for comedians.

Remember when he told us, at a media conference to introduce Loga as the new Warriors gaffer, that the Croatian was quite an experienced coach?

Well, for the benefit of those who have short memories, this is what he said:

“The coach we settled for is a very experienced coach, 2o years of coaching experience, a UEFA Pro Licence and a CAF Licence.

“He has coaches in MOST OF THE CONTINENTS IN ZIMBABWE.”

Well, as the sports journalists battled to understand what he had just said, Kamambo even broke into a smile and started laughing, probably at himself.

Mistakes happen, we all make mistakes, it’s a big part of being a human being.

But, when big mistakes are repeated, on big occasions, they cease being mistakes, they expose someone’s shortcomings.

Which is what happened at another media conference, on July 11, 2020, which Kamambo addressed to unveil the allocations from the FIFA Covid-19 bailout package.

“Our women’s football, we’ve allocated a total of thirty two mirrion, ehhh, 500 thousand, eeeehhh mirrion Zimbabwean dollars.”

THE BEGINNING WAS QUITE CHALLENGING

This is the man you replaced and, against such a background of incompetence, this was a soft landing for a business executive who won the mandate on a landslide, the likes of which we had never seen before.

For many of us, you came from virtually nowhere, we didn’t know your association with football before, we never used to see you at football matches or at any of the other football occasions.

One of the things we do very well, as a football family in this country, is that we have a tendency to gather at funerals when one of us dies and we tend to do very well in giving them a decent farewell.

Even on these sorrowful occasions, we didn’t see you.

But, you said you had an association with Banket United, a Division One side owned by that farming community which, in the ‘80s, was quite a competitive outfit whose attack was led by the Nzombe brothers – Shepherd and Simba.

Simba, a veteran headmaster, is now the Banket United chairman.

There are some people who claim you faked your association with Banket United just to get a card to contest the ZIFA presidency but they haven’t provided the proof to back their claims.

Whatever is the case, what’s clear is that you arrived at a time when the game was crying out for a leader who was not burdened by its past failures and just needed a fresh face and fresh energy.

You were at the right moment, at the right time.

Against that background, it was probably disappointing that in the first few months after you took over, you were struggling to provide a signal that he was piloting this plane out of turbulence.

There were times when I thought you were just a slightly better version of Kamambo, with those small improvements just coming from the fact you spoke well and dressed well.

If Kamambo was a Honda Fit, you were just a hybrid of the same car.

Otherwise, in terms of substance, the real stuff of taking our football to a new level, after the disastrous experiment with Kamambo, I thought you were struggling badly and you were running the risk of losing all the goodwill that had carried you to the throne.

Given how badly I wanted you to succeed, at least for me to show everyone that I was right to say that we couldn’t get any worse than where Kamambo had blindly dragged us, this was quite a big personal disappointment.

WALKING INTO THE LIGHT

But, in retrospect, it was unfair to expect you to change an organisation, which was on its knees, in just a few months.

It’s now clear that you needed time and, I have to say that in the past 12 months, you have exceeded my expectations by providing the kind of leadership at ZIFA which we all expect and which this association has been allergic to.

Yes, you still have some faultlines and the way the Marshall Munetsi debacle has been handled, by both ZIFA and Warriors coach Mario, has left a lot to be desired.

But, that should not hide your achievements in the ZIFA hot seat, especially in the past 12 months under review, where your leadership has really shone through, usually with you letting your good work do all the talking. For an association which had single-handedly destroyed the Mighty Warriors and reduced them from a brand good enough to play at the Olympics to a hopeless franchise by ensuring the Girl Child kept getting a raw deal, your revival of women’s football has been stunning.

For me, the good work was not seen in the way the Mighty Warriors competed well at the COSAFA Championships, in what was a throwback to a past when they were one of the good teams.

Instead, it was seen in the investment in the junior structures of women’s football and that we now can fly the Young Mighty Warriors to Uganda to play in an Under-17 World Cup qualifiers, is a HUGE step forward.

It doesn’t matter that they were thrashed by half-a-dozen goals, a result which reflects how they were neglected in the past, the mere fact that they took part in these qualifiers represents a step into the light.

We shouldn’t forget that a ZIFA president failed to send the Mighty Warriors to Cote d’Ivoire for an Olympic Games qualifier and now we have a ZIFA president who is sending the Young Mighty Warriors to an Under-17 World Cup qualifier.

That’s remarkable progress, Nqobile.

We have seen the deliberate focus and investment in the Under-15 national teams, something which CAF have also seen, and successfully hosting the CAF Africa Schools Championships was a badge which you should carry with honour.

Even Motsepe praised you, and your team, for a job well done.

In just one year, you have done what Kamambo would not have accomplished, even if we had given him ten years in the job as ZIFA president.

The Warriors have been utilising the FIFA friendly windows and their next assignment next month is a high-profile friendly against Nigeria in London.

Imagine, for the first time, the Zimbabwean community in England will be able to watch their Warriors in action on this island where they now live and work.

I now get this impression that, in the next four years, we will see real progress in our football under your guidance Nqobile.

I will be watching, where you veer of course, I will remind you, where you do well I will salute you but what is refreshing is that, unlike in April last year, I sleep soundly feeling we have the right man steering our ship.

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 Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!

Antoniooooooooooooo!

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