The Sunday News
Lewis Maunze
The domination of FC Platinum clearly shows that there is a power shift from our traditional footballing power houses, Tshilamoya, Makepekepe and Dembare (Highlanders, Caps United, Dynamos) to the nouveau riche. FC Platinum have since won the Castle Premier League a record back to back three times.
Gone are the days where every young boy playing in the dusty streets in Mbare or Highfield suburbs dreamt of scoring for Dynamos or Caps United or other peers in Makokoba or Mzilikazi suburbs dreaming of donning the Highlanders black and white top and having their name idolised at the Soweto end. Nowadays “the former big boys” are etched only in our memories as legends. They have to contend with frequent picketing, stand-offs with players over wages, training facilities, allowances among other financial inadequacies as well as bad publicity. Young boys now have ambitions that are driven by reality, survival and above all financial gratification.
There are different types of ownership models in Zimbabwe and world-wide. There are the benevolent family and individual owners; company owners which comprise of private and public limited companies as well as the fan or community owned football clubs. Of which every model comes with its benefits and disadvantages. And in this article we will look at Supporters/ Community owned FC versus Company owned FC which are predominantly visible in Zimbabwe.
The first benefit of the supporters owned model is that the community, unlike an individual investor or company never wavers and are eternally loyal. This is epitomised in a quote by an Anonymous fan that said, “Results do not matter, you are going to support your football team no matter what!”
Fans are the epicentre of any sports team who besides largely contributing to revenue through gate takings and purchasing club merchandise play a role in day to day club politics. There is also the romance of a community coming together through one single cause: Sport.
Nevertheless, a supporter’s run entity lacks the cut-throat business acumen and expertise a company or investor run entity would have. And is likely to experience pitfalls such as financial mismanagement, corruption, bad corporate governance and too many factions among supporters associations which has been a recurring feature among our community-run teams.
It would be unfair to even compare our local context to that of Europe who have more stable structures, currencies and systems. This is why I will juxtapose Zimbabwe with its regional peers. As the cliché goes it is only prudent to deal with African problems with African solutions. Regionally, we cannot avoid talking about Patrice Motsepe’s successful business model with Mamelodi Sundowns Football Club. “Abafana beStyle” are not only the richest team in South Africa but are now the record SA premier league winners with 12 cups, won the Caf Champions League in 2016, are ranked 6th in Caf premier league team standings amongst many of its meteoric achievements. The most notable achievement being the dethroning of South Africa’s traditional footballing giants Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs.
Even in Zimbabwe in the past five years the teams funded by a company or sole investor have won the Castle Premier League. Chicken Inn FC in 2015, Caps United FC in 2016, FC Platinum from 2017- 2019.
The bottom line is that we should be moving towards a fully professionalised sporting industry, whether or not the progress or success is funded by a wealthy investor. Where it becomes normal for players to wear bespoke suits to match days; where it is expected for every team to employ technical experts like statisticians, dieticians, sport scientists and strength and conditioning coaches etc; and where players have image rights and endorsement deals in their contracts. In the long term with the indulgence and lobbying of strategic stakeholders like local authorities each football team should have its own stadium and training facilities. This invokes memories of the now defunct individually-run AmaZulu FC and Motor Action FC who were clearly ahead of their time and had their own training facilities. The embarrassment when Caf declared all of our stadia unsafe should be treated with disdain bearing in mind the popularity of the worlds’ most beautiful game in Zimbabwe.
The benefits of transitioning into sound sporting business entities clearly outweighs the delusion of being stuck with the “traditional big team fallacy”. We should not continually be a pity case that has to wait for Fifa to come to our rescue like with the Covid-19 rescue package. Our football teams, PSL and Zifa should be financially independent and disaster prepared in a bid to mimic top leagues in Africa as closely as possible. In the same breath, who better is there to look up to than Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates.
These two teams are some of the oldest Soweto- founded teams but have been able to become huge business entities as much as they are community football teams. This is because of their ability to adapt and evolve into thriving business entities as they are both company-cum-individually and individually-owned entities respectively. Our cult football teams should not be spared criticism for being myopic and should exploit their stature and use their large fan bases to their advantage.
There is a popular bar joke that as much as there are approximately 14,8 million people in Zimbabwe, six million are Dynamos FC supporters. In using the South African rationale Dynamos should be a stock exchange registered company bearing in mind economics is a game of numbers, which is an advantage they clearly have. They could also be aggressive in their marketing and partnership strategies because I can bet on my last dollar a large group of true-hearted fans would rather have a Bosso Funeral Cover or a Dynamos Mobile Starter pack. And in so doing by default clubs will be complying with Caf’s Competition and Club Licensing System Regulations which are looming.
Nonetheless, kudos should be given to the already modern-esque outfits like Chicken Inn FC, FC Platinum, Ngezi FC and other company or individually run football teams that exude class in their business sense and the way they are managed. This is certainly the future of sport and this has been evident in the results.
