WHY THE SHROUD OF SECRECY AROUND SIHLANGU?

My dearest readers……..Being the Pantsula-for-life that I am, I had a new spring on my walk as I waddled my way to Sigwaca House on a cool Friday afternoon last week in my All-Star takkies, Kappa tracksuit and that glorious team, Orlando Pirates Football Club jacket.

I was on a mission to know what is really happening about our national team, Sihlangu. I wasn’t prepared to make a call but wanted to get it from the horse’s mouth as it were. It was no less journalistic duty to do so. Here was a bonafide liSwati with genuine concern and enthusiasm to contribute towards progress of the senior national team. I hold no dual citizenship. Unlike others, I have no other country to run to.
Luckily for me, the office I was going to, had its door wide open and there sat, ‘Mr. Tomorrow’ (I call him ‘Mr. Tomorrow’ because even if you were to ask him who the next Sihlangu opponent is, he will assure you that you will get the information nomakanjani tomorrow yet this was known early last year). His name is Muzi Radebe. He is allegedly the FA Marketing Officer. He may play dupe to make a living but he is a nice lad. How do you make of this or should I say, picture this.
Me: “Kunjani ye-Mr. Tomorrow, why is it a secret that Sihlangu is in camp? Why don’t you release the list of players and let the nation know what’s going with the national team?”
Mr. Tomorrow: “Eish…..arr….eish…….I don’t know,”

Me: Ye-Radebe utangitjela kusasa…hehehehe
Mr. Tomorrow: hehehehe……eish angati kutsi nje baphatsi nabangakasho lutfo kutsi singakukhipha…eish kute lengingakusho.
Me: Yerr…….Is the national team not in camp?
Mr. Tomorrow: “Yes, it is in camp……..”
Me: “Manje why is this a secret?”
Mr. Tomorrow: Eish angati kubaphatsi bami….eish……….
I turned my back and left in a jiff. Now dear reader, this is what has become of our national team. This is how they do business at Sigwaca House.
Even simple information that the senior national team is in camp, preparing for a crucial Africa Cup of Nations 2019 qualifier against the continent’s number one ranked country, the Eagles Carthage of Tunisia in two weeks time is shrouded in secrecy you would swear the team is on a peace-keeping mission somewhere in Syria.

Worse that the team is actually outside the country, somewhere in the Mountainous Kingdom of Lesotho for a series of friendly games – needless to say that this is the 978th times we have played against the ‘world beaters’ of Likuena Likuena. Thanks to the ever-vigilant, eagle-eyed Times of Swaziland Sports journalists, you know by now we lost the first game 0-1. Not surprising anyway. You know who is in charge. So let’s not waste paper and pen on that area.
Therein lies the rub…
Our nation’s pride Sihlangu has been in camp for a week but the custodians of the team, the football mother body, has not bothered to even tell the nation that simple information. Never mind they have not bothered to tell us who are these players who are in camp.

Then the same team goes out to play an international preparatory game in Lesotho and nobody even bothers to let the nation know. Yet the same nation is expected to fill the stadium to the rafters in support of the team when it plays Tunisia on September 9. Again, never mind the venue and entry fee has still not been confirmed. What’s going on at Sigwaca House?
mismanagement
Is this how they run their business?
I am gatvol. I am livid. We have come to accept that the National Football Association of Eswatini as an organisation of flops, mismanagement and poor judgement but even by their low standards of governance, this week’s events are a shocking aberration.
As much as this might look like a joke, we should not laugh at this latest gaffe by the football authorities. Instead we should be sad that people with such a lack of foresight can be entrusted with administering the country’s biggest sport.
If the FA cannot do a simple task of informing the nation about their number one team – Sihlangu, then why do we even dream of qualifying for any major tournament?
The Sihlangu brand is dead. At this rate there is no hope in sight. The FA should be out there marketing the Sihlangu brand name so that people can associate with it. But there is no flow of information, no coach, no results. Nothing, fokol, zilch, dololo.
The powers-that-be at Sigwaca House are making the job of the so-called marketing officer, ‘Mr. Tomorrow’ more difficult by not letting him show his potential. If anything, they are disempowering him. Like a lapdog, he must talk and shut up when they tell him to. It must be the worst job in the world for the poor guy!

seriousness

The FA must wake up and smell the coffee. If they want people to support the national team then they must start showing seriousness themselves. They can do this by outsourcing the marketing area of the organisation in order to attract the captains of industry. At this rate, no sane sponsor would want to be associated with a deadbeat organisation that cannot even market its own national team.

Never mind that people associate and care about a winning team. In the past, some still remember how the likes of first vice president, Jabulani Nxumalo embarked on a marketing drive under the banner of ‘Siyonqoba Simunye’ to woo sponsors into the national team set up.
As things stand, the risk of a poor turn-out in the game against Tunisia is high and I am certain the noise from the crowd would not disturb even a meeting in a mental asylum. Blame it on the National Football Association of Eswatini (NFAE). They are doing a fine job making a mess of our only national team!
I give up.............

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