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Phillip Zulu

Special Correspondent

WELCOME to the new football order in Zimbabwe where the young generation of players has been sacrificed on the altar of under-development. 

The award giving ceremony of the 11 best football players in our top-flight league on Friday night should amplify the sirens of dying sport loudest as we witness follies of a collapsed game in the midst of confusion and anarchy. 

Walter Musona of FC Platinum won the coveted award in a league that has devoured its junior development programmes and more young players have been culled systematically, as we reflect on the last squad to represent Zimbabwe during the African Cup of Nations tournament shedding more light on the lack of quality development programmes that focus on young players. 

Kudos to Musona, who turns 27 on December 12, for being voted the 2022 Soccer Star of the Year in a sea of overtly almost retiring footballers whose age-groups are hovering above 24, and encroaching their early 30s. 

The first runner-up for this year’s Soccer Star of the Year award, CAPS United’s William Manondo, is 31-year-old while the second runner-up, Dynamos’ defender Frank Makarati, is 28-years-old.

One of the 11 finalists, Gift Bello of FC Platinum, is 38-years-old, two years shy of turning 40.

The flip side of this dire situation is that we all know how the late Stanley ‘’Sinyo’’ Ndunduma won this accolade as a youth player in the Zimbabwe national Under-20 team, George Nechironga and Peter Ndlovu jointly winning the award when both were less than 23. 

 In fact, Ndunduma, at 20, he first clinched the Soccer Star of the Year award in 1981 while he was playing for CAPS United before repeating the same feat four years later at army side Black Rhinos.

When young players are ignored and denied decent platforms to showcase their talents, then the degeneration of football supersede reality of strategically implementing long-term plans and objectives that spur the production of quality players in the local league and senior national team. 

We have moved 1 000 steps backwards as we painfully notice the absence of our young players in the senior national team and club football structures.  Yet, other thriving leagues and national teams are reaping huge benefits of catching them young. Morocco’s 23-year-old centreback Achraf Dari is a bright spark in this World Cup tournament in Qatar, attracting interest from top-flight professional clubs.

Contrast this progressive approach to our last senior national team in Cameroon which pinned their hopes and energies on 30-year-old plus ageing players. 

At the on-going World Cup in Qatar England, Brazil and France are all hugely relying on their young players Bukayo Saka, Vinicius (Jnr) and Kylian Mbappe respectively to win this prestigious tournament. The extinction of our young players in the local league should be blamed on ZIFA and the PSL who jointly allow such an anarchy to reign supreme and strangle the futures of many youngsters out there. 

The best ever junior national teams just after Independence which included the likes of the late Joel ‘’Jubilee’’ Shambo, Stanley ‘’Sinyo’’ Ndunduma (late), Edward ‘’Madhobha’’ Katsvere (late), Japhet ‘’Shortcat’’ Mparutsa, Lucky Dube (late), Peter ‘’Captain Oxo’’ Nkomo, James Takavada etc, progressed most of the squad players to the senior national team and genuine contenders of the Soccer Star of the Year awards when they were still below 23 years old. 

The inscription of the tombstone of our national football should read: ‘’Here Lies The Once Great Sport That Despised Youth Involvement”.

To those doubting Thomases, our football is dead and ready for burial, it’s rather late to try and commiserate or mourn but, it’s best to join the long procession of trekking to its resting place somewhere at Glen Forest Memorial Park. 

The beautiful game that we once enjoyed watching with wide smiles and pomp in Zimbabwe is sadly being lowered to its resting place by despots plundering our football. The die has been cast, we are all complicit in this brazen devouring of our game as multitudes watched from their high fences and cared less about eruptions destroying the smooth running of the game. 

Let the truth be told, football is dead in Zimbabwe and herculean efforts are needed to start from a new page. Walter Musona’s spell in South Africa was not so successful, yet he comes back to Zimbabwe to win the Soccer Star of the Year award at the age of 26. 

The Soccer Stars list confirms the sad reality that all players chosen for this year’s first XI will struggle to make the grade in the South African DStv Premiership and, let alone trying to venture into Europe. 

We used to produce young players like Peter Ndlovu and break into top professional clubs like Coventry City first team at the age of 17 and this successful template of junior football development then makes us seethe with anger as young players are terminally consumed whilst we watch.

■    Additional reporting by Sports Editor Collin Matiza