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Lloyd Mutasa

Bothwell Mahlengwe
IT has been 15 years since Lloyd Mutasa began his coaching career, when he was appointed player-co-coach together with Joe Mugabe at Sporting Lions in the second half of the 2002 season.

Their task was to save the club from relegation. Three months down the line, Mugabe left for the United Kingdom and Mutasa became the head coach assisted by Callisto Pasuwa in a set-up that also included Masimba Dinyero as the manager.

They saved Sporting Lions from relegation, via play-offs. After a coaching a number of clubs, Mutasa surfaced at Dynamos in 2011, tasked with rebuilding from scratch, the Glamour Boys.

That he did and watched Dynamos play one of their best games demolishing US Algier of Algeria 4-1 at Rufaro. Pasuwa was to benefit from Mutasa’s strong foundation and bagged four consecutive league titles.

Mutasa set another good foundation at FC Platinum. Now, back in the DeMbare trenches, Mutasa — who was retained for the job as a last resort this season — was not expected to succeed.

Because, just like in 2011, he had to build from scratch using rookies and rehabilitants — the unknown and the rejected. Two thirds into the season, Mutasa is now in a strong position to finally become a champion. He needs no favours from anyone because his fate is in his hands — not from the referees, other clubs, ZIFA or the PSL.

Mutasa’s journey started 15 years ago and all that we are seeing now is a culmination of more than a decade of hard work filled with frustrations, sleepless nights, anxiety and sometimes doubting his abilities.

It is unfortunate that after such good work by the coaches, the Dynamos executive chose to taint it through an insane and unjustifiable complaint.

How on earth do you ask for reversal of a red card issued to a player for head-butting an opponent?

What message are you sending to your players and the football family at large?

Instead, shouldn’t you be taking further action on the culprit, no matter how good he is, to discourage others from such acts of violence?

Let’s not forget that the Dynamos president is the current PSL chairman.

That automatically makes him the custodian of our top-flight football rules and an interested party to everything concerning his team.

What business are you doing trying to try and secure unholy football decisions?

This beautiful game has laid down rules which are very clear and straight forward and should be followed to the letter. Without that you compromise yourself, your position, your club and football at large.

Just imagine how you are going to uncoil yourself from the complexities you have put yourself in/

You were beginning to gain people’s trust and support and please don’t let your secretary-general who wrote that letter, whatever his name, not to spoil it for you and for Mutasa’s sake.

If a referee errs there are clear channels for his reprimand and sanctioning. And ZIFA are the custodians of all football referees in this country and the custodians of the game itself. They are the be-all-and-end-all, the buck starts and stops with them.

ZIFA president Philip Chiyangwa is not only the Zimbabwean football leader but he is also the regional football leader and, judging by events in the game on the continent, the next CAF president. He has massive influence in world football, through his close links with FIFA boss Gianni Infantino, and every word he says resonates across the world.

He shouldn’t be pushed to say or make decisions that will not reflect well on his international profile, in general, and the game’s interests, in particular, by some crazy Dynamos secretary-general or whatever through some queer appeal.

He is building a legacy that he needs to guard jealously. The world today is talking about Chiyangwa, because he is the one with the profile, not the Dynamos secretary-general who wrote that funny appeal because he isn’t known in international football.

Please, Mr ZIFA president, you have done well for us and don’t let anyone spoil it for you and don’t spoil it for Mutasa, either, and I am saying this as a Dynamos fan.

• Bothwell Mahlengwe is a banker and former Premiership footballer and can be contacted, for feedback, on the email — [email protected]