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Sharuko on Saturday
IT hasn’t been a very good week for the media, what with our colleagues at Soccer Laduma in South Africa being forced to make a humiliating public apology to Kaizer Chiefs by the Press Council, for publishing a fake interview involving Amakhosi midfielder Lucky Baloyi, last year.

Donald Trump has also been tweeting again, of course, hitting out the American media, including describing the people at the iconic The New York Times, as fools, for being fiercely and openly opposed to his candidature for the United States Presidency.

The New York Times led the way in the Trump bashing, mocking his fitness for the job and describing his candidature as a sickening joke, a narrative that was a common feature in the mainstream media outlets of the United States, including CNN and running opinion polls which favoured Hillary Clinton in the race.

That the bulk of the mainstream American media was against Trump’s candidature is very clear and that they have been left nursing their bruises, in the wake of the billionaire’s stunning victory, is there for everyone to see.

But it’s The New York Times, widely considered, within the American media industry, as the “national newspaper of record”, whose circulation of 1 379 806 copies daily makes it the largest circulating among metropolitan newspapers in the United States, with a leading 117 Pulitzer Prizes and which has been published since September 18, 1851, which has taken most of the battering.

This week, the publisher of the newspaper even took the extraordinary step of writing out to subscribers appealing to them to stick with the paper, as many cancelled their subscriptions, in the wake of Trump’s victory.

And Trump, being Trump, seized on it.

“Wow, the @nytimes is losing thousands of subscribers because of their very poor and highly inaccurate coverage of the ‘Trump phenomena’,” the US President-elect tweeted this week before adding, “The @nytimes sent a letter to their subscribers apologising for their BAD coverage of me, @nytimes is just upset that they looked like fools in their coverage of me.”

And, he isn’t the only one who is taking a dig at The New York Times.

Columnist Michael Goodwin, writing in the New York Post, noted that “The Gray Lady (The New York Times) feels the agony of political defeat — in her reputation and in her wallet. After taking a beating almost as brutal as Hillary Clinton’s, The New York Times on Friday made an extraordinary appeal to its readers to stand by her.

“The publisher’s letter to subscribers was part apology and part defence of its campaign coverage. Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. admitted the paper failed to appreciate Donald Trump’s appeal.

“But bad or sloppy journalism doesn’t fully capture the Times’ sins. Not after it announced that it was breaking its rules of coverage because Trump didn’t deserve fairness. Having grown up at the Times, I am pained by its decline. More troubling, as the flagship of American journalism, it is giving all reporters a black eye. Its standards were the source of its credibility, and eliminating them has made it less than ordinary.”

What’s all this to do with what is supposed to a football blog, you might rightly ask?

Great question, indeed!

Well, I thought about The New York Times this week, as I looked at the coverage of our Mighty Warriors, the alarm bells that were ringing in the local media, especially related to their trip to Cameroon, amid concerns in some sections that the team was in danger of failing to make the trip the 2016 AFCON Women championships, .

I said, but the tournament only gets underway today, why then were we all seemingly in such panic mode on Monday and Tuesday and my colleague said but the team needs to acclimatise in Cameroon, of course they do, but isn’t this the same country they visited on their last trip on the continent, when we beat the West Africans on our way to the Olympic Games.

Back then, in October last year when ZIFA were under another leadership, the Mighty Warriors only left for Cameroon, for the final qualifier of their Olympic Games, on the eve of the match after the Association failed to raise funds for the trip with Sports Minister, Makhosini Hlongwane, only coming in at the last-minute to mobilise funds and bankroll the trip.

Somehow, we didn’t cry, as loud as we did this week, that the team was in danger of failing to fulfil that match, which we lost 1-2, before winning 1-0 here, even though that assignment, for the Olympic Games where we had a chance of playing the best nations in the world for the first time, was bigger than the AFCON women finals where we are playing for the fourth time and at the turn of the millennium, we even finished fourth.

Three months earlier, our Mighty Warriors had even failed to travel to Cote d’Ivoire, for an earlier Olympic Games qualifier, with the then ZIFA leadership failing to bankroll their trip, but we didn’t hear the kind of hysterical backlash that we saw this week when the team was still in Harare in the week — about five days before their match in Cameroon today.

WHAT ABOUT OUR NIGERIAN COUNTERPARTS THEN?

On Tuesday, I then checked my Nigerian counterparts and they told me the defending champions, who have won this tournament seven times, were only leaving for Cameroon on Wednesday, the same day the Mighty Warriors also left for their adventure, with the Falcons of Nigeria led by a coach who hasn’t been paid his salary for eight months.

At least, the players had been paid, for qualifying for the Cameroon finals, but just 10 000 naira for each player, which translates to about US$33, by the Nigeria Football Federation.

“Hopefully, our financial situation will improve very soon and we will be able to practically demonstrate how much we treasure you”, Nigeria Football Federation president Amaju Pinnick told the players as they departed for Cameroon.

Now, if the seven-time champions are being paid US$33 each, for qualifying for the tournament, haven’t been paid for their Olympic Games qualifiers and their coach hasn’t been paid for eight months and the president of the Nigeria Football Federation — the game’s governing body in the most powerful economy on the continent — concedes their financial situation is very bad, who are we to try and pretend we are sitting on a beach of gold, diamonds and oil and we are as rich as Qatar, Luxembourg, Singapore, Kuwait and Brunei, the five richest countries in the world today?

Why do we suddenly draw blinkers and try and shield our eyes from the reality we are being led by a football body that is being choked by a US$7 million debt, which they inherited from the previous group of clowns-disguised-as-football-leaders and keep telling ourselves everything should flow smoothly in such a crippling environment?

I’m not saying that we should be comfortable with mediocrity, when we are planning for such big tournaments simply because the Nigerians, probably have a sickening habit of poor planning yet they always do well, but I am saying there is also need for us to be realistic of the challenges, especially financial, which are crippling our football in most parts of the continent.

For us to suddenly expect everything to flow smoothly, when we are carrying a heavy burden of a $7 million debt that no one knows how it came about, except those who are in charge of our game in the five years leading to their mandate being revoked last year, is stretching our dreams too far and the media has a big role to play.

We seem to have forgotten, very quickly, that we are the same country that failed to send our Under-17s to fulfil a second leg of their African Youth Championships qualifier in Angola, just across the Namibian border, four years ago and that ZIFA leadership, which was operating in an economic environment that was in better shape than where we are today, escaped the pummelling they deserved.

And they also failed to send our Under-20 team to fulfil the second leg of their African Under-20 Championships in Brazzaville, Congo, in the same year and still that ZIFA leadership escaped without the kind of basking that we have seen being inflicted on the current leadership.

They could even afford to fail to pay just $60 000, owed to Valinhos, which led to our expulsion from the World Cup, for the first time in our history and still escape without the kind of bashing that we have seen being inflicted on those who replaced them even when these guys, in just under a month or so, managed to ensure that we will play in the 2022 World Cup by paying Tom Saintfiet $160 000.

Those who destroyed our 2018 World Cup dreams have long left the scene, to enjoy their retirement packages, leaving us with a US$7 million debt to deal with, and it’s all good.

And, by the way, Banyana Banyana, who have all the sponsors in the world, only left for Morocco on Tuesday.

We should be directing our anger at CAF who are belittling this tournament to the extent of giving the winners just $80 000.

MAYBE, THAT’S WHY EVEN MESSI ISN’T TALKING TO THE MEDIA

I stayed up until the early hours of Wednesday morning, as I always do when Argentina — a football nation I first fell in love with exactly 30 years ago when Diego Maradona turned football into poetry in the Mexican sunshine in ’86 — are playing in World Cup qualifiers.

It’s something I religiously do because my love affair with the Albiceleste, the nickname of the Argentina national team, coming fourth in the pecking order of my favourite football teams — with my Warriors in first place, my hometown club Falcon Gold in second place and of course, my beloved Manchester United in third place.

Just like with my beloved Manchester United, who didn’t win a league championship until 23 years after I was born, my beloved Warriors who didn’t qualify for the Nations Cup finals for 23 years and my beloved Falcon Gold who began missing my regular presence at their games, 23 years ago as Harare turned into my adopted home, my enduring romance with Argentina has had its fair share of highs and lows.

The ultimate humiliation came in the early hours of September 6, 1993, when I watched helplessly, as the Albiceleste crashed to a 0-5 defeat, in their Buenos Aires fortress, at the hands of a rampant Colombia in a World Cup qualifying humiliation that will never be forgotten in Argentina and by their fans.

Such was the beauty, if not the purity, of the Colombians’ performance that day, with both Faustino Asprilla and Freddy Rincon scoring braces and the ginger-haired Carlos Valderrama providing the conductor to the orchestra with a sublime show in midfield that, after they scored their fourth goal, the Argentine fans at the Estadio Monumental started cheering every touch by the visitors who were given a standing ovation at the end of the match.

Interestingly, the Colombians once again provided the opposition, on Wednesday, for an Argentine side in turmoil after a 0-3 humiliation in their last game against their biggest rivals Brazil, in Belo Horizonte, just a few days earlier.

But there was no repeat of ’93 and, with Lionel Messi in devastating form, scoring one of the best free-kicks seen in recent times and then providing assists for two other goals, Argentina ran out comfortable 3-0 winners over a Colombian side featuring James Rodriguez, Falcao and Juan Cuadrado, to blow winds into the sails of their 2018 World Cup adventure.

After the meltdown in Belo Horizonte, leaving Messi to field some painful questions from reporters, this was refreshing, but what followed, after that hammering of Colombia, was not what I had expected.

Instead of Messi, as captain, appearing for the post-match press conference, the Barcelona superstar was joined by the entire Argentine team, 25 of his Match Day teammates, to face their country’s media and it became clear, something was wrong.

Then, Messi spoke.

“We have decided not to speak any more with the press,” he said. “We’ve received many accusations, a lot of lack of respect and we never said anything. We’re very sorry it has to be like this, but we have no option. We know there are lots of you who are not in the game of showing us respect, but getting into one’s personal life is very grave and that’s why we’re here (announcing this).”

Then, just like that, they all walked out.

BEWARE OF THE GIANT STADIUM HOODOO MAKEPEKEPE

Two years ago, CAPS United ended ZPC Kariba’s championship dreams in the final game of the season as they beat them 3-2 in the final match of the season and, in the process, hand the league title to their bitter rivals Dynamos who beat How Mine 2-0 at Rufaro.

A year earlier, the Green Machine also ended the dreams of Harare City by holding them to a 2-2 draw, in the final game of the season, at the National Sports Stadium and in the process, hand the league title to Dynamos.

Now, Makepekepe, who have played party spoilers in two of the past three years, have a date with destiny in the giant stadium tomorrow and their fans will be hoping that the gods of football will not hit them hard.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo!

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