Where is the moral line in football?

I GOT a message from a follower of this blog saying I was missing in action like the PSL Goalkeeper of the Year at the Chan tournament. I caught the joke in the message when I remembered that the 2013 Goalkeeper of the Year was not George Chigova who was in goals for the Warriors in South Africa. It was not Tafadzwa Dube who was on the bench or Munyaradzi Diya who completed the list of goalkeepers who went to the tournament but it was Black Rhinos’ Herbert Rusawo. And where was the Rhinos guy? Following the Warriors on television like the rest of the world I suppose. Surely there is something terribly wrong with the selection criteria of the best players in the domestic league.

But I am no longer missing in action, and I’m sure Rusawo will not be missing in action any longer now that the Chan tournament is over and we are about to see some business in the domestic scene. Moreso, the festive season is long gone and so has its hangover.

The biggest story since the beginning of the year has been about salaries pocketed by the big guns in some big companies in the country and one of the people who have suffered the brunt of a public trial is Zifa president Cuthbert Dube.

Media reports have said he earns a monthly salary of $230,000 at PSMAS. The board was to later on say he was leaving the organisation since he had reached retirement age, but not before we were told his salary had been slashed to $60,000.

It appears a lot of executives at his organisation were handsomely paid, and there were reports of high salaries at the Harare City Council and ZBC, stories that got even the passive talking.

Given that Dube was also holding another public office in football, he was likely to get more scrutiny and it even gets worse as he has to fight from a number of corners for his survival, be it businesswise, politicswise and footballwise. Literally speaking, his enemies are rubbing their hands in glee as Salarygate rages on.

Zimbabwe National Soccer Supporters Association have called for his resignation with immediate effect. The supporters’ body, led by former Young Warriors’ team manager Eddie Chivero wants Dube to quit administration of the game on moral grounds. They have drawn up a petition to be sent to the Sports Commission questioning the legality of the Zifa elections underway countrywide which they claim have already been heavily compromised.

NSSA president Chivero addressed a media conference in Harare recently where he called on the Zifa president, and members of his entire board, to relinquish their posts and to abandon plans to contest in the next elections scheduled for March.

“All we are trying to do is to force Mr Dube, if he has got any shame left in him, to step down through a petition which we are going to present to the Sports Commission who are mandated to supervise all sporting activities in the country. Elections are about to commence and we are saying if this man has been given a vote-of-no-confidence in most of these boards why should we keep him in football?

“It is the supporters’ wish that Mr Dube respects us and steps down from the Zifa board. If this has been happening in other organisations that he had been leading what makes Zifa exceptional? Why would he be sincere with Zifa? We do not know the salary structures at Zifa, which we are also demanding as supporters to know. It’s a public office we need to know what our CEO is getting since he (Dube) has already set a trend whereby CEOs are paid huge sums of money, maybe for the sake of allegiance. We would want to know what Mr Jonathan Mashingaidze is getting as CEO at Zifa. We would also want to see a probe as soon as possible to find out where the money that was donated to the Warriors and the Mighty Warriors came from.”

If you have been following football politics you would probably know that the supporters’ body has had a love and hate relationship with Dube, leading to the formation of another supporters’ association which does not include the likes of Chivero. So I suppose, it was not surprising that Chivero and crew took the opportunity to rub salt to the wound, but the drama is still going on as Dube seems determined to contest the elections and retain his post. And interestingly, those who were asking where the Zifa boss was getting money to donate to the Warriors and pay Zifa staff over the years could be having a clue now.

The fight for the Zifa posts will be nasty; I want to believe, with one of the touted challengers to Dube, Lesley Gwindi, struggling against a ban he got from the association this week for his utterances last year.

The guy can appeal, or conform to the demands of the sentence and still be eligible to slag it off once again with Dube in the elections and many in his corner believe he has a chance now that Dube has suffered a lot from the public trial.

The whole thing borders on morality, at least for now, unless we get facts of criminal nature from the concerned stakeholders. And the supporters’ body wanted him to step down on moral grounds, and I was left wondering, is there anything like morals in football? Even fair play is not a rule, but just courtesy!

Nick Miller, a blogger from the UK writing for Football365.com, posted an article titled -Where is the moral line in football? He said some people said they did not want a convicted criminal representing their club.

“It’s an understandable point of view, but at what point do morals take over? What is the ethical tipping point when it comes to football? How good does a player have to be before their actions away from football supersede their talent? If, for the sake of argument, Lionel Messi had been convicted of something society regards as beyond the pale -would you want him at your club?” he wrote.

Bawdy Australian comedian Jim Jeffries, in his own rambling, drunken way, touches on this in his stand-up – at what point on the talent curve do we ignore immorality? Elvis Presley met and pursued Priscilla when she was 14.

Charlie Chaplin was involved with any number of very young girls. Gary Glitter…well, you all know about him. And that’s the point – only one of those three men is primarily remembered for something other than his talent. Is that because Glitter was essentially a novelty act and the other two are regarded as the greatest in their fields?

He argues that morality in football is a curious thing, because incidents against the Corinthian spirit of the game are treated more seriously than things “normal” society frowns upon. “If one was to refuse a player on moral grounds, where does one draw the line? At violence? Criminal convictions? Anything for which you would look down on a peer? A handy catch-all might be “anyone you wouldn’t want at your wedding”, but that brings its own problems,” he wrote.

So where do we draw the line here? Is Dube no longer good enough to lead Zifa because of what has happened at PSMAS? Or he was never the ideal guy at all? Does the issue of personal conduct or finances come in? What happens when I want to stand for elections and I’m swimming in debt or insolvent? It’s all about corporate governance I suppose and football needs it too. Interesting football election times are upon us and we are certain to get some quotable quotes from various stakeholders as they try to undo one another.