Editorial Comment: Covid-19: Local sport  faces bleak future

THE future of professional sport, as we have known is now uncertain amid fears the coronavirus pandemic might have a crippling financial effect on the industry.

With the world in lockdown as authorities battle to try and stop the spread of the virus, sport has been pushed into the background, for a very good reason, too.

Given its power to draw thousands of fans, sport clearly presented a headache for authorities because it could have provided a breeding ground for this deadly virus to spread quickly.

That is why there was the swift, and necessary, reaction that virtually all the sporting activities around the world be put on hold until the world finds a way to tame this enemy.

For the first time, when the world isn’t at war, the Olympics — the greatest sporting show — has been postponed, just a few months before it was set to get underway in Japan.

The Asian country had invested a fortune into its facilities as it prepared to welcome the world to this grand sporting festival, but it will have to wait a little longer before that happens.

The Olympics have been postponed to next year as the authorities believe that, by then, they would have found a way to deal with the threat posed by coronavirus.

Japan isn’t the only country counting its costs because different nations around the world had also invested heavily in preparing their athletes to ensure they are in prime shape to go for gold at the Olympics.

The Summer Games are not the only major sporting event which has been affected because we have already seen football leagues around the world bringing their programmes to a halt prematurely.

The 2020 Euros, the second biggest football festival in the world, have also been deferred to next year while the UEFA Champions League and the Europa Cup have been postponed indefinitely.

In Africa, the CHAN finals, which were set to get underway in Cameroon this month, have also been postponed indefinitely and, as we report elsewhere, the tournament will not be held in June either.

The 2021 AFCON qualifiers are also on hold and we don’t even know when the 2022 World Cup qualifiers will get underway. With countries having prepared for these matches to start last month, by investing in technical expertise like good coaches, this will have a huge bearing in terms of the huge cost of the adventure.

We might have to pay our new Warriors coach, Zdravko Logarusic, more than US$100 000 before he even guides us in one competitive match.

Our colleagues in Zambia, who settled for Serbian coach Micho at a salary of about US$25 000 a month, might also have to pay more than US$250 000 before he guides them in one competitive match.

We have seen some of the world’s best footballers like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo taking huge pay cuts, to try and help their employers mitigate the effects of the challenges that will come with reduced revenue.

Sadly, here in Zimbabwe, we are yet to hear our football leaders start the conversation as to how our national game will deal with the effects of this pandemic.

They have all been mute, when the country and the game expect them to provide the leadership, as to how our football will immunise itself against the devastating effects of this pandemic.

No one is talking, as if things are normal, or as if things will just be normal even after this invisible enemy is defeated, when it’s clear that our national game could struggle badly.

How will the majority of our clubs fund their activities in a depressed environment where sponsors, having been hit badly by the effects of this lockdown, have very little to pass on to football?

Will the league’s marriage with Delta Beverages be tied, as had been expected before this virus struck, in an environment where this blue chip’s beer products have been banned, for now, from being sold across the country?

Will Highlanders and CAPS United’s marriage with NetOne be extended, this season, in the wake of the effects that this lockdown could have on the business of the sponsors who have been taking care of these clubs’ salaries?

How will the Premiership newboys, who have already shown they don’t have the capacity to run the full marathon, because of their weak funding streams, survive the test when the league finally gets underway?

What about those clubs in the lower divisions, who are also likely to feel the heat brought by the effects this crisis could have on their traditional backers, survive this year?

Of course, the debate should not only be confined to football, but to all sports disciplines because this is a challenge to our entire sporting fraternity.

Leaders are elected to find solutions to such challenges, as and when they come around, and we had expected that, by now, the conversation around our sport would be about how its bosses will come up with survival strategies.

Sadly, it appears no one is talking, as if everything is fine, when the real picture out there is very scary.

All that we have been hearing from our Premiership leaders, it appears, has been their desperation to try and ensure Herentals are not part of if their family when the league resumes.

But, what about the other 17 clubs in the top-flight league, whose existence is at stake, and the other clubs in the lower divisions, which could collapse?

This is the time for survival strategies to be mapped out, not just fighting a battle against Herentals, because that’s what leadership is all about.

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