Why juju cannot win World Cup

Tendai Chara
ON November 12, 2013 Zimbabwe woke up to the news that suspicious objects, allegedly related to juju, had been discovered in the How Mine Football Club dressing room during a match against Caps United at the National Sports Stadium in Harare.
Among the objects were lighted candles and bottles with an indeterminate liquid. The candles were arranged in a football match formation.
Even as How Mine denied any dealings with juju, the age-old debate of whether or not the occult has an influence on sport was re-ignited.
Weird practices and routines before, during and after games are common.
But can juju really win matches?
Steve Muteriwa, a staunch Dynamos supporter recounts an incident which he strongly believes has everything to do with magic.
“It was a cup match pitting Dynamos against Black Rhinos. Dynamos were trailing by a goal to nil with only three minutes remaining. A Dynamos supporter realised that the ball that was in play had been sprinkled with juju and when the ball went out of play, he deflated it.
“Another ball, which was not sprinkled with juju was introduced. As soon as the ball was introduced, Dynamos scored from the most acute of angels,” he claims.
Muteriwa maintains that Dynamos would have lost the match had the “alert” supporter not deflated the “cursed” ball.
He says magic only works when African teams play against each other.
“Remember what happened to Zaire (now DRC) when they were accompanied by traditional healers to the World Cup? They were trounced and this is an example which shows that juju only work between African teams,” asserts Muteriwa.
Teams from mining and farming communities are believed to be proficient in the application of magic.
Elsewhere on the continent, in 1998, accusations of juju were levelled against a team in DRC after lightning struck dead an entire team while their opponents were left unscathed.
In 2002, the BBC reported that the Cote d’Ivoire government had to settle a 10-year dispute with witchdoctors who claimed that they had a hand in the team’s triumph in African Nations Cup in Senegal in 1992. Apparently, the Elephants had been hexed because the witchdoctors had not been paid for their services.
Traditional healers said charms were usually body parts of hyenas, snakes, crocodiles and owls.
To “neutralise” the rival juju, a well-known Chipinge traditional healer, Sekuru Charles Makuyana Ndunge, once revealed that baboon urine is the most preferred “weapon”.
Sekuru Ndunge said the urine was either sprayed on the field, under goalposts or at the entrance to the soccer field while coarse salt is said to be an effective in repelling rival juju.
In more bizarre cases, both animal and human urine – and even excreta – have been mixed with herbal potions and rubbed onto players’ feet.
In some cases, opposing players do not shake hands before a match.
So maybe no African football teams will not win the World Cup until they find a way to “fix” sides that are not from the continent.