Online Reporter
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HE curtain might be coming down on the Year 2024 season but for the Premier Soccer League, (PSL) it will be a somewhat different year from their regular end of season celebrations.
This is because the PSL will undergo two major changes in their administrative corridors with two of the league’s most powerful men — the chairman and the chief executive — set to leave the top-flight body after more than five years and nearly a decade respectively at the helm.
Harare businessman and Murehwa West Member of Parliament Farai Jere is among the 10 administrators aspiring to be ZIFA president.
Due to his ZIFA presidential aspirations, Jere is to officially relinquish his PSL chairmanship on December 31 and focus on his audacious bid to become the next substantive leader of the football association.
Similarly, the league’s long-serving chief executive officer (CEO) Kenny Ndebele has targeted a post on the ZIFA Executive Committee, which is commonly known in local football circles as the board.
Should he, just like all the other candidates, pass the eligibility test in the January 2025 elections, Ndebele wants to become the next ZIFA vice-president.
The league’s marketing manager, Rodwell Thabe, is also understood to be on his way from office, as he heads for pastures anew, elsewhere on the continent.
But it is the imminent departure of the duo of Jere and Ndebele which will change the face and shape of the 18-team PSL.
They would have to start their new administrative year on January 6 with a search for new drivers of the league, although Jere’s deputy Lifa Ncube will act as league chairman.
Commendably for the PSL, the New Year will also see them start construction on a new headquarters in Borrowdale, Harare.
This also comes at a time when the amended ZIFA constitution confirmed the expansion of the league from 16 to an 18-member entity that will also have an additional voting delegate at the elections.
But as the PSL look to the new year and new beginning, the league will increasingly come under the spotlight in an environment where football has become of the fastest emerging global industries.
To his credit, Ndebele worked hard to ensure that the PSL become a member of the World League’s Forum.
The WFL represents the professional football leagues on a world level with political and sport bodies and fosters co-operation between them and is a vital platform especially for the elite leagues in Africa.
This should stand the PSL in good stead to improve their commercialisation drive and secure even bigger sponsorship and corporate partnership deals.
The arrival of new kids on the block who include GreenFuel, newly-crowned Premiership champions Simba Bhora, and now Scottland, who are coming in from the Northern Region Soccer League, has given hope that the domestic flight will restore some of the glamour it has been losing with each passing year.
And that Scottland as just one small club, can manage to tie up a $1,5 million sponsorship deal from Sakunda Holdings as well secure an agreement to have their kit and their construction work of Mabvuku stadium aided by the oil and construction giants, should be a catalyst that should spur the PSL as an entity to aim for more corporate partners beyond just Delta Beverages — their all-weather friends.
Scottland and Simba Bhora have in the last two years shown the power and wisdom of luring investment into football, which traditional giants Dynamos, Highlanders and CAPS United can also take a leaf from.
Even those in charge of Harare municipality should be able review their business model for Harare City Football Club and create a conducive environment where the capital’s residents enjoy of a sense of belonging and attachment to the club.
But the tone has to be set at PSL level first and those coming in to replace Jere and Ndebele must get the ball running in that direction and target more knock-out tournaments and deals that help bring in the revenue which clubs need for sustainability.
In fact, the Covid-19 experience was an eye-opener, especially for Zimbabwean football, which is yet to recover from the effects of the pandemic three years on.
Local football, just like all the other sports competitions the world over, was made to be played in empty stadiums with fans eventually allowed in gradually until the ban was lifted.
But the result was that local football lost a huge chunk of its fan base. In fact, the game had been losing touch with the fan base for years and the pandemic just worsened a situation that was already bad.
Unlike the yesteryears when the traditional giants would attract capacity crowds in the region of 20 000 to 35 000 at Rufaro, by the time the stadium was condemned in 2019, it had become difficult to attract even a third of those numbers.
Rufaro’s re-opening has only seen a marginal improvement at selected games.
Some local administrators believe the closure of the Mbare venue complicated the situation as fans were finding it costly and cumbersome to travel to the National Sports Stadium where all the Harare-based teams shared one venue.
But it has never been just about the venue or where it is situated because fans have been known to ignore distance where they are guaranteed of high entertainment value.
Local football fans had simply lost interest in domestic football which has continuously dropped in terms of standards.
The fans felt they did not get value for money, and the game was no longer interesting.
The coaches have not helped the matter with their archaic and sometimes “anti-football” tactics just to win game at all costs at the expense of flair.
So, in terms of entertainment, there was nothing for the fan.
Fans also want to see young and exciting talent including those from outside the country’s borders and not a recycling of old players.
