BY TAWANDA TAFIRENYIKA
CAPS United vice-president Nhamo Tutisani has savaged Zifa and the Premier Soccer League (PSL) leadership as mere event managers who lack strategies to turn around domestic football and make it competitive and attractive.
Tutisani, one of the Caps United directors with in-depth knowledge in sports science and management, said the local league was struggling to attract commercial partners mainly because of poor leadership.
In a brutal assessment of the leaders of domestic game, the Harare business executive yesterday said Zimbabwean football is crying for strategic thinkers with the capacity to make it more appealing in order to secure commercial partners.
“It’s sad that Zimbabwean football is not competitive and cannot attract sponsors. The main problem is that the PSL has no plan at all. They (administrators) are simply event managers whose preoccupation is to organise and arrange fixtures as opposed to finding ways to make the product competitive and attract commercial partners,” Tutisani said.
Ironically, the leader of the PSL Farai Jere is his main partner at the Green Machine, with whom they co-own.
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He added that failure to make football competitive has often resulted in desperation with the few commercial partners available, giving limited sponsorship packages not consumerate with what they get from marketing their products through football.
Tutisani challenged local football leaders to develop the product to a point where they can attract and reject bidders from corporates jostling to partner them.
“PSL should create value for football such that we get to a point where we get bidders for our products and even reject some. Dairibord should say we have this, we want to partner you. OK and Delta Beverages should do the same. We should be in a position to reject or accept, but because of desperation, we are happy to get anything. That is the tragedy of our football. It appears like those corporates will be doing us a favour. It looks like the relationship is unidirectional, yet these corporates communicate their value proposition through football. But all this is because we are failing to unlock value for our product. While we should look at the broader macro environment to find the problems of our football, poor leadership is one of the biggest problems — they lack ideas to take the game forward,” he added
The Caps director also blasted Zifa, arguing that as the custodians of the game, their performance has been calamitous.
“Zifa also don’t know what they are doing. The major problem is that when stakeholders attack them for the way they run the game, they think they are being attacked in their personal capacities. No, this is our football it is not (Zifa president Felton) Kamambo or anyone. They forget they are elected officials and that the people who chose them to represent us can withdraw their mandate if they fail to discharge their duties. The problem we have is of councillors who choose them. What should be done is to put pressure on councillors to recall them,” Tutisani said.
With football expected to return after a year on the hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is not clear whether traditional sponsors Delta will be willing to continue bankrolling it.
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