The Sunday News
Innocent Batsani Ncube
LAST Saturday Highlanders Football Club laid to rest one of its most illustrious benefactors, uMdala Tafi Moyo and thus sealed a chapter of a life well lived in the service of the people’s team.
In celebrating his life and perpetuating his legacy, the current and future leadership at Highlanders should always be cognisant of the generational mandate of tackling and winning new challenges.
The current discourse on Fifa Club licensing is the new game in town and as this article will show, Bosso can be the first club to be licensed in Zimbabwe if it is able to take advantage of its human capital, harness able and willing talent as well as close factional ranks and live true to the “At Highlanders we are one” mantra.
The Fifa club licensing was initiated at the Munich Fifa congress in 2006 and subsequently effected in 2008. The Confederation of African Football (Caf) has since directed member associations including Zifa to start licensing clubs as per the regulations. Caf intends to block non compliant clubs from participating in continental championships as an enforcement mechanism starting in 2015. The need for clubs to comply is real and urgent. The licensing system intends to improve the level of professionalism within clubs, promote sporting values in accordance with the principles of fair play and promoting transparency and self sustenance in the finances of clubs. These are definitely must do variables as far as Highlanders is concerned! For clubs to be licensed, Fifa sets five core criterion namely sporting, infrastructure, personnel, legal and financial. A brief analysis of each criterion will follow shortly.
In terms of sporting criteria, clubs that will be granted Fifa approved licenses are those that invest in quality driven youth programmes that support football education and encourage non-football education of their youth players.
In almost every election AGM at Highlanders I have heard candidates fronting what has become a cliche – “junior policy” and reading these Fifa regulations one seems to be struck by the convergence of thought between Fifa and the grassroots.
Bosso needs to invest in innovative ideas of financing its youth structure given the biting economic conditions. A simple but technical solution is to see how the club can leverage on its social base and create a vehicle that will enable it to benefit from the one percent Fifa annual gross earnings that are set aside for development through football activities.
The second criteria relates to infrastructure inclusive of an approved stadium that is well-equipped, well-appointed, safe and comfortable. The club should also have suitable training facilities that help players improve their technical skills. While leasing Barbourfields from the City Council is an ideal current strategy, it is crucial for Bosso leaders, current and future to think about an “Emirates Stadium” type of project. The idea of the first team training at local schools and not accessing modern accessories such as lecture theatres, gym, in-house medical facilities and related amenities will affect both the performance on the pitch and the business side.
As will be shown in the next criteria on finance, the lack of proper investment in infrastructure will be debilitating on the club’s efforts to clear its debt, break even and create surplus for future ventures.
The financial criteria is concerned with clubs that are economically and financially capable, that are transparent and credible and that place necessary importance on the protection of creditors.
On this criterion Highlanders FC is unassailable on transparency and credibility.
It is enviably the only club in Zimbabwe that consistently issues, for membership scrutiny, audited annual financial statements. Regrettably on other points it scores poorly, namely it is currently mired in a ballooning debt trap and sometimes display an intemperate disdain of its creditors.
As a solution, if Bosso invests heavily in the youth development and its business architecture it stands to reverse its financial misfortunes. To illustrate this point, according to the Fifa Training costs compensation schedule, if Bosso is able to groom a single player from the age of 13 who would say, be transferred to Stoke City in the English Premier League at age 21, that player can net the club a whopping $741 000! This is not fiction it is real – all it takes is structured innovation and voila!
The final two sets of criteria are the legal, personnel and administrative. The current positives here include Bosso’s democratic tradition of adherence to the constitution, smooth transition from one set of executive members to the other and animated membership participation in general meetings. To meet the Fifa benchmarks, Bosso has to go a step further and deploy its best talents in the most appropriate administrative positions.
It has to take advantage of its social status and utilise the goodwill that it enjoys by ensuring that those who want to contribute skills and ideas are given the wherewithal to do so without let or hindrance. This will ensure that Bosso is managed in a professional way and that the club consistently deploys available, well educated, qualified and skilled specialists with knowhow and experience.
The next Highlanders patron who takes over from the indefatigable uMdala Tafi should inspire the various organs of the club to move with haste to ensure the club not only becomes the first club licensee in Zimbabwe but also to institutionalise a culture of excellence and ability to perpetually bring smiles to its multitude of supporters through sterling on and off the pitch performances.
This is a million dollar challenge which needs a billion dollar response.
Innocent Batsani Ncube is a Highlanders Life Member and he can be contacted on [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>, +263 776761 830 and on facebook
