Your vote will certainly count!

 

Football fans in the country are seldom included in choosing which teams should participate in a particular tournament and neither do they get involved in choosing which players should play in a particular match, no matter how “friendly” the match can be.

Across the Limpopo, South African football fans have the luxury to select players who will play for Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs in a season opener sponsored by Carling Black Label. Two lucky fans actually get the opportunity to sit on the bench and be part of the coaching department on the day the match is played and that certainly gives a dimension to the beautiful game.

It does not matter how high or low the stakes are in that particular game, but getting fans involved certainly motivates them to support the game even more. Football fans feel they are part of the football family and they take keen interest in the competition because they have a say .

Before the Telkom Knockout changed its format, it was known as the Telkom Charity Cup and was played in a unique way. It was an annual one day tournament for Premier Soccer League clubs. It was usually held in early August, as the season opening event. It was traditionally played at South Africa’s premier football venue, Soccer City.

The qualifying criteria was unique: The public would vote by telephone for their favourite football team to participate. The four clubs with the most votes qualified for the tournament. The aim of the tournament was to raise money for charity through the votes and gate          fees.

The four clubs selected to participate are drawn into two semi-finals, played one after the other. The two winning clubs then play in a final, later that evening. However, in April 2011, the PSL announced that the tournament would be removed from the football calendar and the Telkom knock out would be played in a different format.

A few years back, the country had the OK Grand Challenge Trophy where fans were also involved in choosing which teams they wanted to take part in the tournament.

After a controversial edition in 2012, NetOne have come back with a new format, along the lines of the old Telkom Charity Cup in South Africa, where football fans will have to vote for the teams they want to play in the tournament via SMS to 38080, using their NetOne lines.

The top four teams with the highest votes will play in the semi-finals with the winners progressing to the final, which will be season opener, coming just after the Bob Cup, which is in celebration of President Mugabe’s birthday.

The tournament took a new format from the traditional system where the league winners and the winners of the biggest knockout tournament used to clash in the season opener. That is the system which is also used in major European leagues.

After putting their house in order with the PSL and also addressing the issues of prizes for last year’s tournament after they declared that Dynamos would not get the winners’ cheque for not using their sponsored kit, preferring to use the kit with a logo from their parent sponsors, BancABC, Net One managing director Reward Kangai told the media in Harare that they will give Dynamos players and the technical team a token of appreciation for last year’s efforts.

“NetOne has also revised the format for holding the competition in this year’s edition of the NetOne Charity Shield. To make the tournament more exciting and give an opportunity to more people to participate in raising funds for charity we have facilitated for the fans to select the teams of their choice by voting through SMS for their favourite Castle Lager Premiership Soccer League team,”said Kangai.

At the handover ceremony in Harare on Thursday, 14 charities that run orphanages across the country’s ten provinces benefited from last year’s tournament.

Nonetheless, they are already concerns from the public relating to the authenticity of the voting process, but that is a challenge for the organisers to make the public trust the way their do things so that more people participate and accept the outcome of the votes. 2013 is a year of voting for Zimbabwe indeed! Remember there is the Constitution Referendum and the general elections coming up.

One way of keeping people on track is publishing the votes at certain intervals, so that fans know which teams are leading and which teams are lagging behind until the final vote count takes place. In that way, fans are not surprised when the top four teams are announced.

For views and comments email  [email protected]. You can also follow this writer on Twitter and Facebook.