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FIFA HAS SPOKEN

02/09/2014 08:31:00 By Lwazi's Pandora's Box

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My dearest readers... I was honoured and privileged to have been part of the media personnel who met the FIFA experts led by Kenyan Patrick Onyango, who spent the past week having consultative meetings with various football stakeholders.

It was an eye-opening exercise but most importantly, I was just happy to get an opportunity to tell-it-like- it-is in as far as our football is concerned and why from a media perspective, we experience a lot of difficulties in our line of work. Why, in particular, we are only considered a stakeholder, during ribbon-cutting ceremonies or sponsorship launches and prize presentations yet on the ground, we are treated with disdain as if we have Ebola.

I have always told my friends in the profession, that we are probably the most passionate people about football in this country after the soccer fans who week in and week out pay their disposable income to watch some of the sleep-inducing football displayed by our teams. Our beat is to tell stories – we inform our readers, about their world of football and their societies. We entertain them; we anger them sometimes. We make them sad and despondent when we allow our like and dislike for certain teams and people to override common sense.

We go where many others are not willing to go; trampling through damp swamps, dodging dangerous people and taking risks that would not make sense to other humans. We are insulted, threatened with violence but still we do what we have to do because in our deepest of hearts, truth is our calling. We are not angels and – as idealistic as we are – we have never purported to be on a higher plane than the rest of human society. I get criticised for my opinion on this page every week and with some of my readers we end up agreeing to disagree. Just as others make mistakes, so will we and when we do, it is incumbent on us to say sorry. Sorry not only to those we have hurt but to the readers who consume the information we give them.

We are probably not getting the credit of the hard work we put in as sports journalists in this country. I am not complaining, but as I told those FIFA experts, our National Football Association seriously needs to work on their media relations and marketing. When we criticise our football leaders, we do so as an act of concern by fellow Swazis wishing to contribute to progress.

When we say, it is about time the FA hires a press officer so that there is a free flow of information, I say so because the current set up is unworkable. Let me state it here and now, I am not interested in the job as others I then quick to say we, journalists, perhaps want to be considered for such jobs. From where I am sitting I have more power to influence the discourse of football in this country than all the FA sub-committees combined. So why would I demote myself?
Enough about me. The visit and subsequent statement from the FIFA experts that Swaziland has a huge potential to grow football is heart-warming. The FIFA experts observed that football in this country is growing.

This is a good observation but it doesn’t at all tell half the incredible story. We could be ten-folds better than the position we are currently in, if we did not allow the teething and man-made problems to infiltrate the nucleus of our football. Football in this country is not progressing as it ought to be, due to poor administration at all levels; the warring factions within the corridors of power and certainly the job for pals which has become common in the different levers of power.
Friendship has seen undeserving people being pampered with jobs or tasks within administration which is far beyond their intellectual grasp.

Our FA still treats development as a swear word. They stage events disguised as development. Development is a process, not an event. As FIFA Deputy Development Officer for Southern Africa Patrick Onyango praised the PLS for initiating the Under-20 League, the FA is holding its purse strings tighter. FA President, Adam ‘Bomber’ Mthethwa’s comment on this issue was shocking to say the least. I hope this is not the feeling of the entire FA executive committee.
“FIFA gives every association grants for the Long Term Development Programme and the Under-20 League is part of development. There is no allocation for Under-20 from FIFA,” said our life long FA head honcho.

I couldn’t care much about the FIFA grant, my concern, as I elucidated last week, is on the government’s E5 million allocation, where Parliament made it clear that part of the money should go to the PLS as the main providers of players to the national team. The FA is not adhering to the Parliament ruling and therein lies the rub.
FIFA has spoken about how important it is to have a structure like the Under-20 league and the PLS has led the way. The least the FA can do, is to support such an initiative not through word of mouth but financially speaking. The new season has started already and this is part of the CAF Club Licensing, which the very self-same FA was pushing down the throats of the bankrupt PLS teams. Why then is the FA cutting its nose to spite its own face?

Now here is a passionate plea to the FA president from this grandson of Mlonyeni and the game’s most fastidious angst-ridden arm-chair critic as others have described Yours Truly. Mr Adam ‘Bomber’ Mthethwa, I am not just hoping the FIFA experts’ visit will see a Damascene conversion to the gospel of sensible administration on your part but for God’s sake, please sort out the PLS Under-20 League matter with the urgency it deserves.
Just do the right thing and you know what it is... Let our children play and that’s only fair. Isn’t Fair Play FIFA’s doctrine?
You have been in football long enough to know we cannot afford to destroy another ‘Umtsentse Programme Development’!
I rest my case……….