Enough with Recreational Soccer, Let’s Go Commercial

By Francis Kivuyo

You will all agree with me that football is one of most popular games of our times. Here in Tanzania, for a long time, soccer has been a recreational game. But this is not how soccer is viewed in other parts of the world.

Soccer, in other parts of the world, has turned into a profession, a commercial occupation; it has become a big industry, generating billions of money.

This philosophical disparity between the way we view soccer and how other nations view it, will play a big role in determining our success.  Until and unless, Tanzanians realise that football is a profession and must be handled as such, we will never be compete and outshine others internationally.

The fact that players, managers, coaches, agents, referees are trained at a high cost, from what business people invest into the game, confirm that soccer is a business, a lucrative and competitive one. Thus, to excel in it, one would require creativity and lots of skills.

To elaborate further on this point, I will give an example of West African countries such as Ivory coast,  Ghana and the DR Congo to mention a few where soccer has already been transformed from being simply a source of leisure to a profession. In  East Africa, particularly Tanzania, that has not been the case to a large extent.

For a long time, Tanzania football has remained dormant. This is despite the fact that we were amongst best performing countries of Africa in past years, before and for several years after independence. But we are now left behind. This is because, while others have moved forward, reforming their football systems, we have remained stagnant, perceiving football  still as a  recreational game. With that attitude we can’t compete and outshine others internationally.

In 1973, Tshemi Bwanga who was one of professional footballers from Congo was named the best player of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournament despite his country being dogged by political unrest.

Why is it so difficult for our local footballers to achieve the same success? Who should we blame?  Our football administrators are to blame because they don’t take the game as seriously as others do.

In an interview with the Hill Observer, the former assistant coach of Mbeya City FC, Maka Malwisyi, said one cannot harvest where one has not sown. This means that, our football is still lagging far behind because we didn’t invest properly to develop football.

 “It is crazy to expect a mango fruit under the coconut tree. I am not sure whether Tanzanians play football because to me this is not football but something resembling soccer. Until now, we don’t have good plans and right strategies to guide soccer development in the country,”  Malwisyi said.

Malwisyi who currently coaches Forest Youth Soccer Academy (FOYSA) in Mbeya region added that having only money in football is not enough but we also need good and sustainable plans and strategies to invest wisely where we can quickly see tangible results.

“We have to establish soccer academies to train young players similar to those owned by highly-rated big clubs such Spain giants FC Barcelona. Also, we must inculcate into youths culture of loving to play football,” Maka Malwisyi explained.

Watching top-flight football matches competition in Tanzania, one cannot fail to notice low spirited players, who don’t seem to have hunger for success engrained in their DNA. It is like they are totally satisfied with what they have now. Absolutely, they seem to lack the desire to play in highly lucrative foreign teams. 

However, Baraka Adson Mpenja, sports commentator for Azam TV, blames the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) and clubs for poor soccer development.

“There is no shortcut in football. We have to go back to drawing board and start afresh firstly by scouting for young talents at the grassroots level.  Clubs and soccer academies have primary responsibility to raise young footballers, but the federation and associations must support the clubs,” Mpenja said.

Mpenja further said, “Frankly speaking, when it comes to football, going professional is not an easy job. We need to invest a lot in research before undertaking any project.”

Although our national football federation, TFF under president Jamal Emily Malinzi is trying to be innovative by launching different programmes to improve football standard, the truth is there is little chance of success because we act professionally.

Take as an example the Taifa Stars Maboresho Programme which was started with the aim of recruiting under-23 youths, from all over the country to be used as backup for the senior national team. Nothing good seems to be coming out of it. The programme did not produce any positive result despite millions of money being spent on this endeavour. 

The programme was simply a joke. Nowhere else except in Tanzania a player can be plucked directly from the street with no formal football training and be given a call up for the national team. Malinzi said that this is unacceptable shortcut method of trying to force good results by sheer will without proper and sustainable investments. We forgot that we could not have a mango fruit under a coconut tree.

Football is just like religion.  The early the child is exposed to it, the more it becomes an integral part of his or her life. That is why there are sports academies where a child who is serious with her/his talent should go to improve it.

In recent years, Taifa Stars senior team has been an unending topic of discussion due to its poor performances both in friendly international games and in international tournaments such as the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) and the World Cup preliminary rounds.

May 2015 was the toughest moment for the Tanzania soccer. Our national team, Taifa Stars, was invited to COSAFA 2015 competitions in South Africa and was knocked out of the tournament at the group stage. Stars played in Group B with Swaziland, Madagascar and Lesotho. In this group, Tanzania was the most highly rated team. Surprisingly, Stars lost all the matches in its group. We couldn’t manage even a single draw! Taifa Stars having failed to score any goal in three matches against Swaziland, Madagascar and Lesotho, I can conclude that football in Tanzania is practically dead in an intensive care unit.

To add salt to injury, we were later knocked out of the African Nations Championship (CHAN) competitions after Uganda beat us at home 3 - 0 in Zanzibar. The 1 – 1 draw we managed in Uganda was unfortunately too little too late.

The sharp lesson: Shortcuts are always expensive. This is no longer viable method to develop our soccer. If anything, we will only be wasting our time. We better be late but reach our destination. Youths sports academies are the only saviour to our sports currently in shambles.

To get back to the game that is universally loved, we have to agree that football is now a business and we need to follow the rule of the game to stay on top and fight with the best and generate our share of the talent and the income that goes with it.