The spectre of football administrator Andrew Kamanga still looms within Football House with a well intended sponsor briefing by MultiChoice turning into a circus dressing down the FAZ presidential aspirant.
On a day the news story at Football House may have been about what landmark the US$5million five year sponsorship deal may bring to the Zambian game notwithstanding that clubs get peanuts from the deal, FAZ defacto communication officer Erick Mwanza with his sidekick Nkweto Ntembwe angled their arsenals at Kamanga who ironically they consistently referred to a “none FAZ member” who has no right to say anything about football.
There could have been no harm letting the highly publicized press briefing be about the naming of the 23 players that will do duty in Kenya, but the whole meeting turned into a Kamanga show – a non FAZ member!
For the one hour briefing that the sponsor was supposed to give insight on what was the increase as the press were lumped with the well intended US$5 million, there was no courtesy to say what the previous deal was worth, but thanks to a little institutional journalistic memory, we were able to figure out that the increase from five years ago is only US$850, 000. Wonder what was hard about telling the media that!
So much for the “we are the most transparent association in Africa” vibe. By the way it could have been easier to milk a stone than get an answer on how much each club will get. All the press got was “the councillors are resolved to ensure that Kalusha Bwalya continues as FAZ president for a third term”.
For any football person you may not have come across a more alarming yet casually put statement as this. For purposes of clarity it will be reproduced:
“Super League will have 18 teams and once enacted into law at the end of the season the proposal that has been put in place is that two teams be relegated from the Super League instead of four,” said defacto FAZ communications officer Erick Mwanza.
“The first division is being unbundled, we will have four zones. There will no longer be Division One North and South. There will be Division One Zone One which will have Luapula, Copperbelt and North Western Province; Zone Two will have Lusaka and Eastern Province, Zone Three Northern, Central, Muchinga and Zone Four Southern and Western.”
He adds: “Four streams of Division One with each stream consisting 16 teams and at the end of the season the respective zone winner gets promoted to the Super League. The usual four will drop so the only exception in terms of demotion will only be this year.”
Very brilliant idea on the surface or landmark others may say before the brother man added:
“We must emphasize also that in these consultations and coming up with this structure we are resolved and IT WILL NOT NEED A VOTE because it is already unanimous. IT WILL JUST BE A MERE MENTION THERE WILL BE NO CREATION OF NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE. THE LEAGUE CONTINUES UNDER THE FAZ.”
For all our stretched memories, we have not forgotten that this matter was deferred given its weighty and revolutionary nature but now it will just be mentioned and boom that’s it!
While change is inevitable it must be systematic and all inclusive unlike just shoving down an idea to carefully selected councillors who you meet at a great cost to overhaul a system radically leaving the owners of the game behind.
By the way has anyone heard Erick getting petty and personal in pushing his agenda to compete for office? How many AGMs did Kalusha attend before assuming office? The answer is ZERO. How many clubs did Kalusha serve before entering FAZ. The answer is ZERO. He forged his way.
Here goes Erick.
“How many AGMs has he (Kamanga) attended? I want to believe that he was at one time chairman of Kabwe Warriors, ask him what proposals he brought about the league before he was chucked out at Power and Premium Sports ask him were those proposals were?” said Mwanza at a Multi Choice briefing.
“I am privileged to have listened to two minutes of his talk of something on the league. I was shocked at his lack of knowledge and understanding. Shocked because what he was discussing in is far from what is obtaining on the ground. Simply put if you write this please put it in bold we sympathize greatly with the man and his lack of understanding and failure to apply himself to what is obtaining on the ground and articulate football matters.”
He added: “The man has run out of what to say, he has nowhere to hold on to any straw. He has never presented any ideas to FAZ even through Warriors, Power or Premium Sports through whoever. Maybe he must look for a club which will sign him on so that we can invite him to the AGM. So that he can be able to participate in these things and not be a bystander.”
That was an hour’s worth of Football House productive time with the sponsor only given five minutes. Very curious timing too for landmark developments by FAZ, wish they had started four years ago. Just maybe by now clubs could get more than US$30, 000 from the deal which by the way one may not be sure if they receive it! Surely, Kamanga must be haunting Kalusha and his men. Good day.
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