CHAN Sojourn Exposes Developmental Weaknesses

The recently ended CHAN tournament has highlighted several deficiencies that continue to afflict Zambian football and show no sign of changing as the game struggles to regain its former status on the African continent.

Zambia’s quarter final loss to Guinea appeared close on paper but, truth be told, the gap in class between the two teams was much wider than the result showed. Guinea strung their passes together in a coherent pattern, their first touch on the ball was excellent, and they played with a pace and verve that Zambia could not match. Watching the two semi-finals after Zambia’s exit, it was patently clear that the last four teams, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali and DRC were a cut above the Zambian team.

With the exception of the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations success, Zambia’s showing in the last two decades, both at club and national team level, has been nothing to write home about. The subsequent form of the national team in successive tournaments - after 2012 - show a return to failures of the period between 1998 and 2010, when Zambia bowed out of tournament in the first round, with the exception of 2004 when, even worse, the team failed to even qualify.

The consecutive first round exits threaten to confine Zambia to the category of one-hit-wonders, like Ethiopia and Sudan, who also have Africa Cup victories on their records but have never been able to come close to making an impact in African football again.

Where does Zambia’s resurrection lie?

In reinventing the domestic game as a hub of youth development- as was the case in the seventies and eighties- when school’s football was the engine that churned out talented individuals who could hold their own against any other players in African football. Zambian clubs featured in the finals of African club competitions and rarely went out before the semi-final stage. It was a similar situation with the national team that, in the eighties alone, played a final and two semi-finals in the Africa Cup of Nations. The story of the demise of Zambia’s football structures does not need repetition here; they collapsed with the dismemberment of Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines and with the country’s precipitous economic decline that led to the abandonment of the socialist policies of the UNIP government and the painful restructuring of the transition to a free-market economy.

Since that calamitous period for Zambian football, the school’s and mining community football structures that churned out Godfrey Chitalu, Dick Chama, Charles Musonda, Kalusha Bwalya, and Wisdom Chansa and so many other great stars disintegrated and were not replaced or reinvented.

Worldwide, the shift from schools or communities to club-owned or Football Association-run programmes has taken place. Those countries that failed to make the transition have seen their fortunes decline. Zambia is a prime example. Today, with schools no longer the engine room of football development, most players filtering into the development teams come from academies that have been set up by individuals through their own efforts and from some of the clubs that have belatedly set up their own youth structures. They should be commended for their efforts in taking up the initiative to fill the void left by the collapse of national structures. Yet, they will be the first to admit that the quality of players coming through the ranks is a far cry from the past generations that made Zambia a household name.

On the eve of Zambia’s 50^th Independence celebrations last year, several veteran followers of Zambian football were asked to select their best ever eleven in fifty years of Zambian football. Those who had been privileged to see the evolution of the domestic game from the seventies to date selected players who had been prominent in the earlier era, leaving out even those who had brought the country their first ever Africa Cup success in 2012. Their selection evoked the ire of the younger generation who had not had the opportunity or privilege to see Zambian football at its zenith, but then lack of TV footage from that great era means that they will not be able to make the comparison.

If Zambia is to return to become a consistent and leading side in African football again, the onus lies on the games leaders to design and implement a structure that will, once again, take young players from an early age through a development programme that teaches the basics from an early age, run by qualified personnel and that graduates players from their local township, village or community through city, district, provincial and national foundations into the clubs and ultimately the national teams. This requires funding and recruitment of qualified staff, development of training facilities and a coordinated and formalised development programme.

Such transformation requires competent, focused and committed leadership. It also needs management structures and personnel with understanding of how to manage organisations in the 21^st century and in a dynamic and fast-changing world. The ways of operating in the past will not hold up in today’s environment. As any management student understands, an organisation that does not evolve and adapt will inevitably fail and wither away. Zambian football administration needs to take its ‘great leap forward’ if it is to return to the fore of the African game and challenge for African titles and to achieve world cup qualification. 

The Player Drain snares Kalengo

Winston Kalengo's departure from  Zambian football to go and ply his trade in Congo Brazzaville comes no surprise. Zambian players have been easy pickings for foreign clubs whose owners have deep pockets, irrespective of the quality of the league's those clubs play in.

The antiquated remuneration structures in the Zambian Premier League leaves the door open for the snatching away of the best local talent. Most, if not all, of the clubs in the domestic league structure their remuneration by grouping players into three distinct tiers, with the best and most experienced players at the top, the promising and upcoming or fading older players in the middle, and the youth in the third bracket.
These three levels have ceilings that prevent players from earning their true worth.

An example is a football club I once served on the executive board of, which uses this structure, as all its rivals do. Though the tiers were similar to its competitors, their rivals upper limits were higher by amounts that were good enough to attract the attentions of our players.This also tied the club's hand when we sought to sign on several players and were unable to meet their demands. This also opened our players to overtures from our direct rivals and it was no surprise in mid season when we lost crucial players needed to take the team to league success. I have no doubt in my mind that this cost us the league title.

I have always advocated for the phasing out of this method of salary scales and its replacement by individually negotiated contracts. A player should be paid what he is worth and if it means breaking the bank to get them on board then so be it. I don't see why a top player in Zambia should not earn more if he can justify his earnings by delivering on the field and leading his club to success, both domestically and in the African club competitions, which gives the club access to hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue and the potential to play in the lucrative World Cup of Clubs.

The onus is on clubs to utilise the various revenue streams available to them and not just rely on the grant from their corporate owners or government institutions to finance their operations. Once their financial base is more substantial, they can then untie their purse strings and hold on to their best talent for a longer period.

The current maximum wage structure will continue to keep Zambian clubs from succeeding in international competitions and further restrict player development by their absence from top flight African competitions.

Veteran Players in Developmental Team

The selection of Christopher Katongo and Isaac Chansa into the Zambia team that will participate in the African Nations Championship, CHAN, in Rwanda in January has raised eyebrows in football circles.

The two players, part of the generation introduced into the national team more than a decade ago have been out of the national team picture since 2013 in Chanda's case and 2014 in Katongo's.

Coach George Lwandamina's selection of the two into a tournament that is largely meant to develop players prevents two young players who are progressing in their careers from taking a forward step in their developmental process.

This is detrimental for the long term development of the next generation of players and the future of the national team. Zambia should be looking at bigger objectives such as qualification for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations and the 2018 World Cup in Russia. To include two players who will not be a part of this qualification process in a developmental team loses sight of the purposes of these competitions. I have always been opposed to the selection of players from the senior national team into junior sides as it adds nothing to their development and denies those players who need the experience to get to the next stage of their growth.

Cleaning the Football House

The resignation of Sepp Blatter was long overdue. The hijacking of football by a clique of self-serving officials is a rot that goes all the way down from world governing body to continental level and to the national associations that make the the 209 members of FIFA.

That 133 members voted for Sepp Blatter to stay on as president says everything about the cesspool that football has become.

This should be the first step in the wholesale cleaning of football at all levels to give the game leadership that is honest, has integrity and that puts football first, above personal gain.

Writing 'The Zambian Game.'

Writing 'The Zambian Game' was quite an experience. It involved delving back into the deepest reaches of memory to recall some of the most memorable moments I have spent following Zambian football and countless interviews with many of the people who were influential in making Zambian football so memorable over the years.

Below is an excerpt from the chapter that looks at Zambia's success in winning the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations.

Standing in Zambia’s path was a Ghanaian team, ranked among the favourites to win the tournament, and playing, if not with the expected dominance, with the air of a team that truly believed that nothing less than a place in the final was their destiny. Before the match Ghanaian midfielder, Sulley Muntari, is said to have scoffed at Renard’s credentials, remarking that he had only been the physical coach when he worked for the Black Stars. Renard took the comment in his stride, channelling it as a motivation rather than considering it a put-down. He explains, ‘Maybe Muntari has a short memory because I was doing seventy five percent of the training. Only the tactical approach was from Claude Le Roy because it was not special physical fitness or training, it was mixed. I remember I was with him many times in the gym, to prepare him but maybe at this time he didn’t see something of me because I didn’t make any decisions. With me, I was confident. I knew one day, my day would come and I knew sixteen of the twenty-three Ghana players. I said to my players, the final against Ivory Coast, this is our chance because today we will beat them and we will play the final, and we will win this final.’

Renard was not the only one in the Zambian contingent who found himself the target of cynics. He remembers an incident before the match against Ghana that strengthened the resolve of the Zambian team to win. ‘We had such a strong mentality. We were upset sometimes about the comments. Before the Ghana game, three players were in the press conference and one journalist asked, ‘Can you introduce yourselves because we don’t know you?’ Christopher Katongo was so upset but first, we believed in ourselves. We got strength, I don’t know where the strength came from but it was unbelievable. Me, I didn’t for a second, fear anybody; Ghana, Ivory Coast.’

As expected, Ghana dominated large spells of the match with possession in their favour but the Zambian team had their moments too. The turning point came when Renard took off James Chamanga and brought on Emmanuel Mayuka. He also replaced the more defensively-minded Francis Kasonde with Chisamba Lungu at a critical time on the match, when fatigue was beginning to creep into the Ghanaian team after their relentless but futile attempts on the Zambian goal. It took one flash of brilliance by Mayuka to decide the match, as he swiveled to create space and shot instantly, catching Adam Kwarasey off-guard. It proved the difference between the two teams and Zambia were in the final eighteen years after their last appearance in Tunisia in 1994.

Power Dynamos Football Club: A New Journey

Thirty years ago, 1984, I sat in the terraces at the Arthur Davies Stadium and watched Power Dynamos win their first-ever league title with a comprehensive 4-1 defeat of Mufulira Wanderers. The match, played under floodlights - a rare occurrence these days - was a thriller and I was overjoyed as Wisdom Chansa and company steamrolled over opposition that included talented players, among them Kalusha Bwalya, Philemon Mulala, and Frederick Kashimoto, all regular national team players.

Over the years as the playing generations changed my relationship with the players evolved, from hero worshipper to friendship, older brother to father figure and now, with recent my appointment as committee member at the club, to administrator.

The road ahead is one full of uncertainty as we, the members of the executive committee, seek to return the team to the heights of over two decades ago when Power Dynamos became the first Zambian team to lift a continental title with victory over Nigeria's BCC Lions, 5-4 on aggregate over two legs.

Since that glorious and memorable episode, Zambian football subsequently sunk to all all-time low with the decline of the domestic game, only to resurface in 2012 with an unexpected victory in the Africa Cup of Nations that reignited the passions of local fans , sparking a mini-revival of the local league.
We hope to, at Power Dynamos, build a club that will stand the test of time by making it a self-sustaining entity, win the league regularly, win an African title again and finally, play at the World Cup of Clubs.

This will take considerable effort and ingenuity given the paucity of commercial revenue streams in Zambian football and the reluctance of marketing executives in the corporate sector to look beyond the classical marketing tools of print, radio, outdoor and TV. Their view of football as just a game and not a vehicle for reaching the large, emotive audiences that follow the game make the task for commercial independence all the more difficult. One could say, in their defence, that Zambian football has itself not looked at the game introspectively and made itself available as a commercial vehicle. Domestic football is still plagued by cases of mismanagement, poor facilities, crowd violence and non-commercial decisions that beggar belief. Matches played midweek during working hours with virtually no crowd in attendance are a case in point.

On the field, there is still much work to be done to raise the technical level to that of the north African giants who continually dominate the continental competitions with the odd cup going to the deep-pocketed TP Mazembe of the Democratic republic of Congo. The players, too, need to raise their levels of professionalism to a higher plane with diet, media relations, work ethic, tactical discipline and off-field conduct all areas that could do with much improvement.

If all goes according to plan, the league title should be within reach this season, continental football next year and thereafter the bar will be set higher - to become African champions once again.

The Travesty of African Football Broadcast Rights

Last week as Zambia succumbed to the might of Ghana's Black Stars to bring the country's world cup dreams to an abrupt halt, there was the distinct possibility that the match, eventually broadcast by Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation, ZNBC, would not be televised due to the high cost of procuring the rights to show the game.

Sportfive, the Paris-based sports marketing agency owns the rights for the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, having procured them from the Confederation of African Football, CAF. They demanded the sum of US$150,000 for the match, exactly the same amount ZNBC has paid to secure the rights for all 64 World Cup 2014 matches. Due to public pressure, ZNBC struggled but eventually managed to raise the amount.

Earlier in the year, ZNBC had to fork out the not-too-insignificant sum of 1-million Euro or US$1.55m for 32 matches of the Africa Cup of Nations. In the case of Nigeria, LC2, the company appointed by Sportfive to sell the Africa Cup of Nations tournament rights to African countries demanded the sum of 4.5 million Euro (US$6-million) from the west African country. Nigeria subsequently were unable to broadcast the matches on Free-To -Air TV, forcing fans to watch the matches on satellite TV in pubs, homes and improvised viewing centres.

It is clear that the rights being sold to African countries are not being sold at values that make commercial sense but that, given the fanaticism of African football fans for their teams, leaves countries with no choice but to pay whatever is demanded by the rights holders. African countries are being forced to pay

sums that they could never hope to recoup through sales of advertising on their TV platforms. This renders the price of the product way beyond its true market value.

Either the government or companies are arm-twisted into paying these abnormally inflated fees to prevent a public uproar that wouldn't go down well politically.

Until broadcasters stand their ground and refuse to be extorted the daylight robbery of their coffers will continue unabated.