Online Reporter
Sharuko on Saturday
GREETINGS Zimbabwe in the first week of 2025 – the year in which Highlanders will be 99 not out, one year short of becoming a proud Centurion.
The year Masvingo United fans will mark the 20th anniversary of that moment when their club came very close, yet very far, from becoming champions.
That was in 2005.
All that Yuna Yuna needed was a home victory for them to make history as the first club, from outside Harare and Bulawayo, to be crowned champions, in the era of Independence.
But, they self-destructed in the rain at Mucheke and a Dynamos victory saw the league championship being won by a faltering CAPS United, who lost their final game 0-3 to Black Rhinos, in Harare.
Today, I wanted to dedicate this column to Benjani Mwaruwari and praise him for his defiance, his refusal to be bullied by a flawed system and his reluctance to be floored and buried by a witch hunt disguised as an integrity check.
I wanted to praise his courage to fight those who want to destroy his dreams of becoming the next ZIFA boss, not because I believe he is the best candidate, but because I believe that, like everyone else, he deserves his chance to contest.
I wanted to praise his conviction to show that sometimes spending as much as US$28 000, which is what his Court of Arbitration for Sport bill could eventually amount to, is worth every penny if one is fighting for a cause he believes in.
The good thing is that ZIFA, who are responsible for this mess, will also pay a significant chunk of these costs because they are the other party in this dispute and that is how arbitration works.
The misconception is that one needs about US$28 000 to file a case with CAS when the reality is that one only needs just about US$1 097 to file a case with this body.
In the end, the whole ZIFA election season could be derailed by a simple phrase which says “passed a minimum of 5 O-Level subjects or any equivalent educational level”.
That is different from saying “passed, at least, a minimum of 5 O-Level subjects,” because “equivalent” is dressed in a lot of ambiguity and could open a path to the legal challenges we are witnessing from the likes of Benjani.
One of those inconsistencies relate to what appears to be a conflict between the ZIFA Electoral Code and the ZIFA Constitution.
The ZIFA Constitution is the bible and everything, including the election process, should be done within its provisions.
The ZIFA Electoral Code says that candidates who are unhappy with the decisions of its Ethics Committee can only appeal to CAS.
Fair and fine.
But isn’t that in direct conflict to what the ZIFA Constitution, in Article 63, says:
“The Appeal Committee is responsible for hearing appeals against decisions from the Disciplinary Committee and from the Ethics Committee that are not declared final by the relevant regulations of ZIFA.
“Decisions pronounced by the Appeal Committee may only be referred to CAS in accordance with the provisions in these Statutes.”
I’m not a lawyer, but I believe that by opening a pathway, for those who failed the Ethics Committee tests, to take their cases to CAS, it means that those decisions were not final.
And, if they are not final, the ZIFA Constitution says that they should be taken to the Appeals Committee, and those who are not happy there could then proceed by taking their cases to CAS.
I could be wrong but these are the little technicalities which are picked up by high-powered lawyers at such organisations like CAS.
The irony of it all is that if Gianni Infantino steps aside today and Benji throws his name to replace him, and gets the backing of five FAs, he will be eligible to fight for the FIFA presidency while he cannot fight for the ZIFA presidency.
That just doesn’t sound right, does it?
Michel Platini rose to become UEFA president and should have been FIFA president in 2016, but he has no traceable educational background to talk about.
This is what I wanted to talk about this week.
And, much more like how I am concerned by the lack of support from former and current players to their fellow players who have thrown their names into the ring for various posts.
NYOKA, THE SNAKE, THE DARK ARTS
Then, yesterday, Richard Chihoro died, and everything changed.
They called him Nyoka, the snake, the serpent which is the ultimate image of danger and death and, according to the Bible, played the role in deceiving Adam and Eve to choose evil instead of good.
Some say it was something to do with his dribbling skills while the majority say it was something to do with his specialist role in the dark arts of football in which juju men and women play the game behind the scenes.
They say he was a master of these dark arts and he was so brazen about it he was even suspended by the PSL after one of his acts at Barbourfields triggered widespread condemnation.
He always said it was all part of his cocktail of psychological battles and, in reality, this was just an elaborate mind game which he played just to unsettle the opposition.
However, the large sums of dollars, which Dynamos spend every year paying their juju consultants, suggest this was more than just mind games and that someone called a snake was part of it all is hardly a surprise.
For me, he was always a throwback to the days back in Chakari when the mine management employed a full-time juju man for our Chakari United.
The last one was called Yellowman.
Chihoro was a Dynamos son, through and through,
And, away from football, he was a very good man, always greeted you with a smile, loved his beer and, more than anything else, loved his Glamour Boys.
In the end, he was a very lonely man, having been axed from his job as team manager and given a non-existent post of director of football in which he was meant to do nothing and say absolutely nothing.
He must have thought he was different from the others, who have been abused and dumped in similar fashion by the Marriot Family (Pvt) Ltd, the company which is masquerading as the owners of Dynamos.
The company which is claiming to be the owners of DeMbare, impersonating as the owners of Chazunguza and parading itself, in a march powered by lies and family ties, as the real face of these Glamour Boys.
The irony of all this is that Chihoro was axed from his job as team manager to create space for Marriot’s son, Harry Lusengo, with devastating consequences, including alcohol binges, in a CAF Confederation trip of shame to Botswana.
That’s where the DeMbare players ended up being fed by food from a street corner restaurant and, with some of them feeling sick on match day, they failed to produce the same level of performance from a first leg they had won 1-0.
They lost the reverse fixture by a similar scoreline and went out on penalties.
Chihoro had his faults as a team manager and there are some who will say he might have overstayed in that job.
But, whatever his faults, even in his worst case scenario, he can never be compared to Harry, a greenhorn at this level of the game who should first be tasked with managing the Marriot home garden before being recruited to be a team manager of a boozers’ team.
At his burial, they will tell the mourners that he was a great and loyal servant of DeMbare, and they will be absolutely right.
What they will not tell the mourners is that in the final months of his life, Chihoro was an isolated, dejected and lonely man who felt he had been betrayed by the man he always supported in good and bad times – Bernard Marriot.
There are some who believe that his rejection and isolation had a profound impact on him; it led to his suffering, internally, and could have played a part in his death.
I had a good relationship with Chihoro and I think, even though at times he didn’t like the tone of my criticism for his team, he understood that I was just doing my job.
I will miss him because he was a good guy.
He wrote a fine chapter for himself at Dynamos and no one can erase that chapter.
Chihoro’s death should be another reminder to Marriot that we are just mere mortals and soon it will be us being written in the past tense where the word ‘was’ replaces the word ‘is’.
He is the latest partner and confidante that the DeMbare godfather has lost.
The message to Marriot should be clear – this is the time for the old man to sort out this wrangle over the Dynamos ownership structure so that he can leave a legacy as the man who finally found out that the interests of millions of this club’s fans were more important than his family’s interests.
Marriot has made many mistakes and through his selfishness he has dragged Dynamos to the edge of its graveyard and that it hasn’t been buried yet is just because of its unique resilience.
As he mourns Chihoro, that is if he still cared about him, Marriot should know that the time has come for him to concede that Dynamos can’t afford another year being run like his family’s tuckshop.
Chihoro was younger than Marriot and there is a message in that.
To God Be the Glory!
Peace to the GEPA Chief, the Big Fish, George Norton, Daily Service, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and all the Chakariboys still in the struggle.
Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Khamaldhinoooooooooooooooooo!
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Email – robson.sharuko@zimpapers.zo.zw
You can also interact with me on the ZTV footbal programme, Game Plan, where I join the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika on Wednesdays.
