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Sharuko on Saturday
IT took just four days for Sepp Blatter to retreat from the euphoria of a sensational triumph, which he even accompanied with a motion picture soundtrack, to accept the shattering reality that 133 national football leaders had dressed him in borrowed robes.

In those four days, alone in his mansion and far away from the madding crowd of those people who had thrust on him the mandate to lead world football for another four years, Blatter went through a tough introspection.

He could hear the global outcry that greeted his victory, he could feel the humiliation that more than a third of the FIFA constituency had rejected him, and somehow preferred a virtually unknown 39-year-old Jordanian Prince, and all the explosive energy, he had displayed as he sang “Let’s Go FIFA, Let’s Go FIFA”, vanished.

After 40 years with FIFA, and just FOUR days after getting a fresh mandate for a FOUR-year term as president, Blatter made the big decision that the time for him, to walk away from an organisation, where he has spent exactly half his life, had come.

Finally, it dawned on Blatter that the wishes of the 3.5 billion football fans in the world, the majority of whom appeared to oppose his candidature, were more important than the patronage of just 133 delegates, who had come on an all-expenses-paid-for retreat in Zurich, and endorsed his extended stay at the helm of the game.

“While I have a mandate from the membership of FIFA, I do not feel I have a mandate from the entire football world — THE FANS, THE PLAYERS, THE CLUBS, THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE, BREATHE AND LOVE FOOTBALL,” Blatter said in his farewell speech.

I have always been one of Blatter’s supporters and, on this blog, about a dozen years ago, I penned an article, backing him to retain his position as FIFA president, arguing that although challenger Issa Hayatou was African, he did not represent the continent’s interests, and the mere fact that he was black did not mean he should be our choice.

I argued that Hayatou was a deeply divisive monster who felt that Africa started and ended with the Western and Northern blocs of Africa, his powerbase, had done nothing to improve football in Southern Africa and was, in fact, a cancer that had paralysed the growth of the game on this continent.

That this could come from an African journalist, at a time when the world was being fed the toxic propaganda that Hayatou would be supported by the entire continent, pushed my article into the boardrooms of Zurich.

And such was its impact I even received a personal letter from Markus Siegler, the then FIFA communications director, saying he had been moved by my honesty at a time when the emphasis was to try and portray that election as a fight between black and white.

Of course, I didn’t support Blatter’s decision to try and extend his rule beyond this year, 17 years as head of FIFA, 17 years as the organisation’s secretary-general and six years as the technical director, should have been enough.

Refreshingly, even after winning that vote last Friday, where our ZIFA president Cuthbert Dube voted for him, Blatter had the presence of mind to realise that, despite the endorsement from people who were guided more by what he has done for them, not what they will do for football, it was time to leave.

After all, FIFA was in the eye of a raging corruption storm, an unprecedented assault which had blown apart its integrity, the graphic failings of a number of leaders who had pledged to serve the game but, instead, turned themselves into merchants of enrichment, abusing their positions of public trust, lieutenants who had failed their leader.

Blatter is yet to be touched by the scandal but the mere fact that this happened under his watch, when he should have been the leader who makes the checks and balances, made him culpable and if all this mess could happen under him, in the past 17 years, there were no guarantees, really, that another four years in charge would provide something different.

His decision, therefore, to pass on the leadership baton to someone else, was not only right but an insult to those 133 national football leaders, who had chosen to be blinded by patronage, at a time when the world demanded them to do what was right for the future of the game, and endorsed his leadership.

IF BLATTER CAN DO IT, WHY CAN’T DUBE DO IT, TOO?

Just like Blatter in Zurich last Friday, Dube failed to win a first round battle to retain his position as ZIFA president, even though he had the massive benefit that come with incumbency, with the entire machinery of the Association in his favour while his main opponent, Trevor Carelse-Juul, was not even given the benefit to inspect the voters’ role.

Just like Blatter, Dube was rejected by more than a third of the Councillors, with a man who had last been a part of Zimbabwean football 20 years ago, and who had only been back in the country for two weeks, getting about a quarter of the votes cast.

And, just like Blatter, our dear football leader had to deal with the outrage that greeted his victory, the reality that it had been built on the patronage of just a few of those who benefited from being part of his extended and inner family and that this triumph was, in every sense of it, a defeat painted in the fading colours of a victory.

“We must also be honest to state, without fear or favour, that the outcome of these elections was indecent and defied all rationality and purpose,” Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo noted.

“As we congratulate the winners of the ZIFA elections, it must also be pointed out that nobody is fooled by the ZIFA circus whose corruption, in terms of moral irresponsibility, was exposed by the outcome of the election.

“The ZIFA electorate has prepared a bed full of thorns and they must now lie on that bed themselves and, perhaps, with the leadership it voted for.

“What exactly was endorsed by this scandalous vote? Nobody else, PARTICULARLY THE GENERAL PUBLIC, FOOTBALL SUPPORTERS OR EVEN SPONSORS SHOULD BE EXPECTED TO LIE ON THAT THORNY AND DIRTY BED. The buck should stop with the indecent outcome of the scandalous election.”

There is a striking similarity between Blatter and Moyo’s recognition that the FIFA presidential elections last week, and the ZIFA presidential elections last year, did not pass the test to get the endorsement of the FANS, “the people who live, breathe and love football.”

There is a striking similarity between Blatter and Moyo’s recognition that the FIFA presidential elections last week, and the ZIFA presidential poll last year, did not pass the test to get the endorsement, in Blatter’s case, “the world of football,” and in Dube’s case, the “general public,” who matter so much going forward.

There is a striking similarity between Blatter and Moyo’s recognition that the FIFA presidential elections last week, just like the ZIFA presidential poll last year, did not pass the test to get the crucial backing of the players, the stars of this game, whose magic illuminates the fields and make this game an irresistible sport.

Blatter says he feels he didn’t get the mandate of “the players, the clubs,” in his statement, while Moyo said “Zimbabwe soccer today is clearly in the doldrums in every respect with its administration characterised by breathtaking chaos, incompetence and corruption with no precedence since Independence in 1980.”

Clearly, Moyo, in that statement, refers to the lack of endorsement of the players, something that was buttressed this week by Paul Gundani, the fiery leader of our Players Union, when he said Dube had failed the game, because when our football was not in the doldrums, our players were doing well in national colours, under a different leader.

Whether it’s the Dream Team, when we used to come within one win of a place at the World Cup finals, not now when, for the first time in our history, we fail to win even one of our SIX World Cup qualifiers, including losing two of our three home matches, when the possibility of even playing at the next World Cup is getting remote with each passing day as we remain banned from the tournament.

Whether it’s our qualification for the Nations Cup finals — not once but twice — not now when we have become so impotent, profoundly weakened, we are even being humiliated in the preliminaries of the qualifiers, without even a win in two games against Tanzania, of all teams on this continent.

Whether it’s the COSAFA Cup where our boys used to rule the roost and we were champions, not once, not twice, not three times but FOUR times, and not now when we struggle to beat Seychelles and Mauritius and we are humiliated 1-4 by Namibia, failing in the group stages, long before other seeded nations have arrived at the tournament.

Now, we even celebrate when we eliminate Swaziland on away goals rules, akomana, failing to beat them in two matches — home and away — over 180 minutes.

And, to add insult to injury, while our leaders were feasting with the world’s football leadership at glitzy five-star hotels in Zurich last weekend, our Young Warriors were being fed by a Good Samaritan called Cuthbert Malajila in South Africa and then being given a bus by the kind-hearted Swaziland authorities to enable them to get to Johannesburg to catch their flight back home.

Yes, Dube isn’t the one to blame for all this mess, neither is Blatter the one to blame for everything that is exploding in world football, but leadership means that you take responsibility for the success, when it comes, and failure, when you go through that phase.

Cuthbert Dube clearly has a mandate from the membership of ZIFA, 34 of them voted for him in the first round and 44 did so in the second round, but what is very clear, and is an undeniable fact, is that he does not have the mandate of the country, not even a tenth of it, he doesn’t have the mandate of “THE FANS, THE PLAYERS, THE CLUBS, THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE, BREATHE AND LOVE FOOTBALL.”

This was the template that the most powerful man in world football, in the past 17 years, used to make a decision, just four days after being re-elected for another four years, to walk away and it’s something that Dube could use, to do the same, because, there is no point in hanging on to a vote of 44 people when 14 million others don’t support you anymore.

Even after a year, it’s not too late to see the light.

OH, BY THE WAY, WE HAVE A CHAMPS LEAGUE FINAL TONIGHT

Such has been the impact of the negativity of the FIFA crisis that tonight’s Champions League final, where we can get another reminder of how beautiful this global game is, has been completely overshadowed.

Messi, Neymar and Suarez — a trio being powered by the pain of a World Cup that ended in failure one way or the other — have simply been irresistible, leading the line of a team that has taken attacking football to another level.

Barcelona might have their demons, Neymar’s controversial transfer reminds us that there are also some clones of Jack Warners at this club, Messi has his issues over tax fraud and Suarez is likely to bite someone should things not go according to plan tonight.

But, boy oh boy, when they are in free-flow, they make football look very beautiful and that, coming from a lifelong Manchester United fan whose side is still searching for its way out of the darkness, is not an easy thing to say.

Then, there is

something called fate

Is it by just coincidence that Juventus are back in the final of the Champions League in the year the club is marking the 30th anniversary of their first triumph in the European Cup in Belgium in 1985 when they beat Liverpool through a controversial penalty?

It is just a coincidence that Juve are back in the Champions League final in the year this club is marking the 30th anniversary of that day, at Heysel Stadium, when 39 of their fans perished, during the disturbances that marred their match against Liverpool?

Is the Old Lady of Italian football being driven by the spirits of those who lost their lives in that disaster, to become European champions again, and just a week before a 39-year-old Jordanian Prince almost became the FIFA president, can the number 39 — representing each and every Juve fan who perished in the Heysel disaster — be decisive this time around?

Has fate ruled that Michel Platini, the scorer of that goal that won Juve their first European Cup crown in Belgium 30 years ago, as their fans died on the terraces, will be the one who will hand them the trophy again, as winners, in his capacity as Uefa president tonight in Berlin?

Heysel, just like the FIFA crisis, represents the ugly side of football but, of course, Messi, Neymar and Suarez can show us the beautiful side tonight.

 

To God Be The Glory!

Come United!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chicharitooooooooooooooooooo!

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