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ALOIS Bunjira and Ezra Tshisa Sibanda this week compared two high-profile matches abandoned in Zimbabwe and South Africa this year, because of power failure, and the sharp difference of how the countries’ football leaders reacted. The two football analysts observed that chaos characterised how our football leaders handled the 2015 Independence Trophy final between Dynamos and FC Platinum, abandoned in a haze of darkness, at the National Sports Stadium.

In sharp contrast, there was a swift and orderly response to the way football authorities in South Africa handled the match between Orlando Pirates and SuperSport United, abandoned in a mist of darkness, on Tuesday.

Moments after the referee abandoned that match, an announcement was made that the game would resume the following day, with SuperSport holding onto the one-goal advantage they had secured before the lights failed, and only the remaining 27 minutes of regulation time, being played.

Here, the ZIFA Board had to be summoned to meet to deliberate the issue, the matter was then passed to the Sports Commission, and then back to our dysfunctional football governing body and, when the decision came, it was the Mother of All Shockers.

The game, abandoned with 23 minutes left when DeMbare were leading 1-0, had to be replayed from the first minute, everything that had happened in that initial encounter wiped away from the memory bank by our football leaders, the Glamour Boys’ goal tossed away into the dustbin, never to be celebrated, forever to be forgotten.

FC Platinum, on the ropes as the game staggered towards its closing stages, suddenly were handed a reprieve, their deficit wiped away by a stinking boardroom decision from an abandoned association, desperate to cling on to any hint of a relationship, which probably believed that the mere similarity of the initials of their name (Z), for ZIFA and Zvishavane, the club’s hometown, meant they were some distance relatives.

Zvikahi regai tivape chemusha vana sahwira, ndevezhira ava, zvavanobva kwedu chaiko pedo ne Mberengwa!

A fresh game, where fans — who had gained free entrance into the original contest but now had to pay to watch the replay — was ordered, to be played on May 12, three weeks after the abandoned match, at a venue different from where the initial tie had been staged.

But the Dynamos leadership could not have any of that nonsense and refused to fulfil a game where their fans, who form the majority of the supporters, would now be milked by the very people who had erased their advantage, made a mockery of the energy their players had invested in 67 minutes of action and blew wind into the failing sails of their opponents.

FC Platinum returned to Harare, for the ghost game, arrived to find Rufaro locked, with the stadium apparently having not been booked for that fixture-made-in-hell, with no match officials in sight, or fans to watch this phantom of a game, so controversial, it had certainly brought the integrity, and purity, of the Uhuru Cup into disrepute.

Despite all this farce, FC Platinum were even handed the trophy, as winners of an important tournament that represents our freedom from the yoke of colonial bondage, and we had those photos of the club’s officials parading the silverware, even though it was clear that they had been dressed in borrowed robes by an inept football leadership still trapped in the Stone Age.

They even had the courtesy of telling us that they had based their horrible decision on Force Majeure, and when we argued otherwise, with this column taking a leading role in disputing that, it sparked the wave of the “gore rino tichadzidza zvakawanda” phrase by the guys who run the DeMbare Dotcoms Facebook page, a saying that has become so fashionable I even heard Mai Chisamba saying it on one of the adverts for her upcoming show on national television.

This week, after power failed a high-profile game in South Africa, we saw how an effective leadership, whose decisions are in tandem with what is happening around the world, who act swiftly and decisively, handled the issue and, within a few hours, their game had moved on, the ghost of that premature ending of that game buried, without the controversy that we saw here.

For the record, SuperSport United, who now have our own coach, Kaitano Tembo, as the assistant gaffer to head coach Gordon Igesund, held on to their one-goal advantage, from the previous night, and beat their rivals 1-0 in a game in which Tendai Ndoro missed some good chances, in a tough debut, before being pulled out in the second half.

The South African football authorities didn’t try to erase SuperSport United’s advantage, from the previous segment of the game, and neither did they try to give Pirates an advantage, even though they are one of the two biggest football clubs in that country, by erasing their one-goal disadvantage by the time the game was abandoned because of the power failure.

IT’S THINGS LIKE THESE,

ALOIS, WHICH RAISE EYEBROWS

In the week leading to the Young Warriors’ trip to South Africa for their CAF Under-23 final round, second leg qualifier, ZIFA announced that the tickets for the team’s flight had been secured by FC Platinum Holdings.

“The team is leaving on Friday morning aboard Air Zimbabwe,” ZIFA spokesman, Xolisani Gwesela, said.

“Tickets have already been purchased by FC Platinum Holdings and we would like to thank them for partnering the association in these difficult moments.”

After the Warriors beat Malawi 2-1 in Blantyre, to get their 2017 Nations Cup qualifiers to a flying start, FC Platinum Holdings were one of the organisations that ZIFA also thanked, for helping them, in the logistics for that match.

For those who don’t know, FC Platinum Holdings is the company that now owns Premiership club, FC Platinum, and whose commercial wing has, under its portfolio, catering services, gym facilities, cleaning services, regalia sales, platinum lounges and platinum bars.

The grand announcement that FC Platinum Holdings had now taken over the running of the Premiership club, from Mimosa Mining Company, was made at a function in Harare in February that was attended by ZIFA chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze, board members Fungai Chihuri and Twine Phiri, the association’s marketing manager Wellington Mugwagwa and Gwesela, among a host of other football officials and fans.

FC Platinum Holdings need to be commended for coming to the aid of ZIFA, with financial packages, which ultimately benefit the Warriors, as was the case with the trip to Malawi, and the Young Warriors, as was the case with their tickets for their flight to Johannesburg two weeks ago.

The challenge, though, with such a tricky relationship, comes when, as was the case in the Independence Trophy saga, ZIFA are accused of delivering a judgment that suits the interest of a club run by a company which, now and again, bails them out with financial packages for the Young Warriors and the senior national team.

It becomes easy, in such a scenario, for the Dynamos officials and fans to believe that their opponents were given a favourable judgment, and one that was hostile to the Glamour Boys’ interests, simply because ZIFA were paying back to FC Platinum for the helping hand that they get, now and again, from the company that runs the Zvishavane club.

Justice, in such a scenario, is seen to have been compromised by other interests, which have nothing to do with the issue at hand, but the identity of one of the parties in the dispute, and it becomes easy for those who feel they have been given a raw deal, as was the case with Dynamos in the Independence Trophy saga, to believe there was undue influence in the delivery of the verdict.

While justice might have been delivered, the mere relationship between ZIFA and FC Platinum Holdings, and the fact that the judgment favoured a club that is run by the company, cast serious doubts on the impartiality of the authority delivering that judgment.

Our learned friends in the legal fraternity are familiar with the phrase that “NOT ONLY MUST JUSTICE BE DONE, BUT IT MUST ALSO BE SEEN TO HAVE BEEN DONE.”

They know that in 1923, McCarthy, a British motorcyclist, was dragged to court after he was involved in a road accident in a landmark English case that laid the foundation on how the justice system should deal with issues of impartiality, and recusal of judges, and established the principle that the mere appearance of bias is sufficient to overturn a judicial decision.

The then Lord Chief Justice Hewart, famously quashed the conviction of McCarthy, on appeal, after the motorcyclist and his lawyers found out that the clerk of court, who had retired with the judges into their chambers before they delivered their judgment to convict him, was a member of the firm of lawyers acting in another civil case against the defendant arising from that accident.

Even though Lord Chief Justice Hewart was satisfied that the judges who convicted McCarthy had not consulted the clerk of court, to reach their decision, his mere presence in their company, and participation in the case, given his interests that could be boosted by a guilty verdict of the accused, was deemed to be inappropriate.

“The question, therefore, is not whether in this case the clerk made any observation or offered any criticism which he might not properly have made or offered; the question is whether he was so related to the case, in its civil aspect, as to be unfit to act as clerk to the justices in the criminal matter. The answer to that question depends not upon what actually was done but upon what might appear to be done,” Lord Chief Justice Hewart rule, as he quashed the conviction.

“Nothing is to be done which creates even a suspicion that there has been an improper interference with the course of justice.

“It is not merely of some importance, but is of fundamental importance, that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.”

That is our challenge, Alois and Ezra, and why, in the case of the Independence Trophy saga, the delivery of justice wasn’t swift and, even when it came, one of the parties in the dispute felt that the whole process had been compromised and refused to be part of the farce.

WE ARE LUCKY, ALOIS, THAT THE CHIBUKU SUPER CUP WASN’T DISRUPTED

The final of the Chibuku Super Cup at Mandava last year ended in controversy after FC Platinum scored a last-gasp equaliser which their opponents, Harare City, disputed amid claims by the Sunshine Boys that the ball didn’t cross the line.

Having led for the better part of the game, Harare City appeared to have done enough to win the trophy until the very last seconds of the match when FC Platinum scrambled home an equaliser that triggered protests from their opponents, who argued that not only had the time added on lapsed, but the ball didn’t cross the line in that goalmouth melee.

“This is daylight robbery,” then FC Platinum coach, Masimba Dinyero, whose team collapsed in the subsequent penalty shoot-out lottery, told journalists, and he felt so hurt he even refused to accept his runners-up medal.

“To say the honest truth, we were robbed. These referees are killing the game.”

Dinyero subsequently lost his job and he can be forgiven if he feels that, had Harare City won the Chibuku Super Cup, he would still be in charge of the Sunshine Boys today.

You can forgive him, too, if he feels that, when he had the chance to celebrate his Finest Hour, the domestic football system betrayed him.

That the referees fall directly under ZIFA, who have a special relationship with the club he feels got a helping hand from the match officials to deny him glory that afternoon, will certainly leave Dinyero wondering, probably for the rest of his life, that there was a grand collusion to dent him his Finest Hour.

It might not be true, there might not have been any collusion, but given the relationship between ZIFA and FC Platinum, and using Lord Chief Justice Hewart’s judgment, it provokes suspicion that there has been an improper manipulation of the system and, clearly, justice hasn’t seen to have been done.

We are just lucky, Alois, that Harare City officials are a bunch of gentlemen otherwise the Chibuku Super Cup, whose second edition got underway last weekend, would have been dragged into the mud last year, tainted by negativity, the sponsors would have decided to shelve it.

And, if you consider that this is the only all-inclusive knock-out tournament for the domestic Premiership still standing, and its sponsors are also the ones who bankroll the league championship, the possible consequences are frightening.

But, then, that’s the huge price we pay for not doing things the right way in this game, like our brothers across the Limpopo.

To God Be The Glory!

Come On United!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chicharitoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

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