25 June 2011
opinion
THE beauty about democracy is that it gives everyone a chance to get their views across and nowhere is this more pronounced, in all spheres of our lives on this planet, than in the world’s most beautiful game, known simply as football.
Fifa, for all its fault lines and allegations of corruption, real or imagined, which have battered the organisation, remains a shining beacon of democracy.
We can fault the system as easily corruptible, which helps people like Jack Warner to rise and assume such positions of authority in Fifa and people like Amos Adamu to win Caf elections and get executive posts on the Fifa board, but the bottom line remains that there is democracy in world football.
Now and again, elections are held for any executive posts, be it at district, provincial, regional, national, continental and Fifa level and every association, which is a member of the world football governing body, has to consistently hold elections for its leadership.
You can’t stage a military coup to become a leader of a national Football Association and still get recognition by Fifa and neither can you be parachuted to the presidency of any FA, on the back of a wave of popular protests by disgruntled fans and stakeholders like what is happening in the Arab spring.
So, even for all the drama that went on in the countdown and during the Fifa Congress in Zurich this month, Sepp Blatter had to go through an election, even when he remained the only candidate standing, after his challenger Mohamad Bin Hammam was swept away by the politics of the game.
The member associations had to vote, to endorse Blatter as their leader, and give him the authority to run Fifa, and such is the democracy in the game, no matter how ugly, the English FA were allowed to use their voice, and their choice, to ask for a postponement of the vote because they felt there were a lot of irregularities.
The issue had to go to a vote and, amid the English humiliation, the world’s football leaders decided to go for the elections and Blatter emerged from the dirty wrestling contest, even though with questionable credentials, as the leader of Fifa.
Cuthbert Dube had to win the vote, for the Zifa presidency, for him to become the leader of Zimbabwean football and, for all their challenges, the people at 53 Livingstone Avenue have always respected the need to go to elections when the time comes to choose leaders.
This week, following the publication of the first half commentary from Admire Taderera and Alois Bunjira, when they covered the Zimbabwe/Mali 2012 Nations Cup qualifier at Rufaro earlier this month, I decided to be democratic and asked the readers of this column, the way forward.
Last Saturday, I had promised that I would publish the second half commentary today, to close the chapter and make the people judge for themselves whether those who have been inundating me with complaints, that Admire and Alois were too negative in their commentary, were justified to make those calls.
I had already made my conclusion, after going through the commentary again and again, that Admire and Alois were certainly not negative but clearly firm and I said I found their coverage to be quite professional.
But I am just one of the thousands, if not millions, of voices in our game and others have to be heard, for the sake of democracy, and I felt it was only fair that the issue be tabled in an open court and we get as much feedback, from the readership, as possible.
However, in the past week, I have been inundated by text messages and emails from readers, who were not talking about either the negativity or positive touch of the commentary but were unhappy that we could spend another week on the same subject.
Some of them felt betrayed, by their columnist, saying that I had chosen to shift from the usual stuff that I write about and venture into an area that clearly didn’t attract them or, in the event that it did, disappointed them given the tone used by the two commentators that day.
Others were even severe, saying that should I run the second half of that commentary, they would never read my blog again.
Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinions and I’m not the kind of guy who could be held to ransom, in the event that I feel strongly on a certain issue, by a group of readers who threaten that should I write about this and that, then they will wave goodbye to reading this blog.
During this lengthy journey, in which we have broken all records of longevity for a newspaper blog in this country in the past decade or so, marching together as writer and reader, we have lost a number of readers and gained a good number of others.
But, essentially in a democracy, you need to listen to the constituency that you serve and that is why, even when I felt very strongly that I should run the second half commentary by Admire and Alois today, as promised last Saturday, I needed to open the floor to other views.
So, I went for an on-line survey, asking whether we should run the second half commentary or not, and the response, I must say, was an overwhelmingly NO VOTE!
Interestingly, as I went through the feedback, including some which came from such high offices like the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture David Coltart, I was certainly touched by the impact that I make on the readership of this blog every Saturday.
When you realise that someone waits for an entire week, just to read your blog and there is a certain addiction to it, you know that you have to be responsible and the least that you can do is to brush aside the concerns of such a readership.
So, in the true spirit of democracy, we found a way forward.
The Commentary And The Feedback
DAVID COLTART (Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture) – I certainly would like to read what you have to say – isn’t that what freedom of speech is all about?
JAMES LENNON – I think people are failing to understand the point behind your publication of Admire’s commentary. It’s best you publish the second half and then school everyone on why you did that because that’s the only way we learn. To Admire, I say stop being negative to our players, they are youngsters being moulded into a team, your comparison with Barcelona is very wrong as they have been together for over five years from the Spanish National Team to the Nou Camp as a unit training, and as a team, uninterrupted. The way we retained possession was excellent and you should have known better that they were doing that perfectly well. As for Alois, he is just a critic who is even confused by what he says. Remember he once declared himself the man to coach the Warriors, then the man to lead Zifa? Please support the Warriors for the good of the nation. South Africans support their players even when we all know they are not as talented as they want us to believe.
JERE CHIKAMBURE – Pane zvinhu zvakawanda zvekunyora nezvazvo zvisiri kupa vaAdmire Taderera chiedza chavasingakodzere. Chatakaona svondo rapera ndechekuti vaTaderera vaida kuzviedza ivo murairidzi wechikwata chevavhimi vedu, asi basa ravo raive rekurondedzera mafambiro aiita mutambo munhandare. Chitauko chekutanga chenyaya yenyu chaiva mupepanhau resvondo rapera handina kumbochiverenga nekuti kutambisa nguva. Zvinodova nani kana mukanyora pamusoro pekuti sei muchifunga kuti mutambo wakatambwa nechikwata cheCAPS United necheDynamos wainyanya kusvota kudarika mitambo yese yamakaona pazvikwata izvi. Kubhadhara dhora kuti tiverenge Admire Taderera kunorwadza.
WILLIAM MPASU – I believe it’s worth finishing off the second half of the commentary. We could be the minority but remember many out there buy the newspaper (The Herald) for your column and yet many others wait for those who buy to be through so they can have their chance to read it. So, boring to many of us as it was, it’s being eagerly awaited by thousands.
GEORGE DAMSON – I read only two columns in The Herald – The Other Side (Nathaniel Manheru) and your column. I was shocked to find out that you devoted the column to that Taderera stuff. I won’t buy The Herald this Saturday if you write that second half thing.
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