IT’S JUST A THOUGHT: LET’S TALK SPORTS IN ZED

Me with President Kaunda as Referee at Woodlands Stadium

I was just thinking.

Looking back from where the country has come from in sports since Independence, I was kind of disappointed that we have somewhat taken some strides backwards from where we were. I feel that had we aggressively pursued sports development in a more serious way, Zambia would have been a serious contender in many sporting disciplines in the world today.

Yes, we won the 2012 AFCON Cup. Yes, last Sunday the Zambia Under-20 soccer team won the African title. Yes, Esther Phiri and Catherine Phiri have won some women’s world boxing championships which, I stand to be corrected, seem to make news only in Zambia. Yes, perhaps we’ve picked up a trophy here and there elsewhere but really, apart from these and motor racing, I can’t think of any significant progress this country has made in sport as compared to the years from 1964 to 1991. We may not have won any major titles to write to the village about, but we were a vibrant nation in many sporting disciplines. 

Here is what I mean.

Part of the Zambia XI selected to play Ghana's
Black Stars on Zambia's Independence Day

I wrote the other day that during the 1960’s and 70’s, for example, football in this country was a game that filled stadiums even at club level. Our arena of sports disciplines was widespread with vibrant participation in tennis, weight lifting, power-man shows, polo, horse racing, cycling, rifle-shooting, bowling, squash, netball, swimming, boxing and wrestling, cricket, volleyball, basketball, badminton, athletics, chess, etc., all at club, national and international level. Dennis Liwewe’s Sports Review program on Television Zambia covered all these different sports that we often looked forward to when he would say, “Finally, Soccer”.

Owner Dr George Connolly with
winning horse Oriele

Some of the golfers who rose to the top on the PGA circuit carved their names in the Zambia Golf Open. Players like Ian Woosnam, Gordon Brand and Brian Barnes were attracted to play here and went on to be the some of the best in the world. The ladies team of Hilda Edwards, Veronica Mpheneka and others was just great.

Our National Netball Team under the administration of Sarah Mulyata and Lillian Nkhuwa was untouchable in the region. We had great players like Lillian Sithole, Changu Shankomaune and Maud Magodi at City of Lusaka Netball Club, Regina Sokoni at Profund Warriors and many others who could stand against the best on the continent.

World 400 meter hurdles
 champion
Samuel Matete

Tennis: The Simunyola Brothers

I am yet to see players like Recrena Banda, Philip Musonda, Simon Gondwe, Victoria Chishimba and Charles Maboshe who made this country proud on the squash courts. Tennis produced young players like brothers Teza, Niza and Kela Simunyola, Edwin Kunda and Dermott Sweeney and the Kangwa brothers led by Fred. Audrey Chikani, Yotham Muleya, Simon Matete, Samson Mubangalala and others were household names in athletics. Judo had the female star Matilda Mwaba who is still active in African sports administration today.

 Wrestling Legend Fred Coates

 Zambian wrestling brought us Larry Old, Freddie Coates, John Mwale, Hugo Mulenga, Barry Lindo, Harjot Singh and Willie “Tiger Boy” Nkandu. They fought some of the best wrestlers in the world at the time who came to Zambia, like Kendo Nagasaki, Big Daddy, Kid Chocolate, the Hungarian Josef Kovacs, Nigerian “Power”  Mike and Andre the Giant. Zambian-based Ghanaian Gibson Nwosu was a great promoter of boxing.

Commonwealth Boxing Bantamweight
Champion Patrick Mambwe (left)
and Davis Natta

Commonwealth Light Heavyweight
 Champion and World title contender
Lottie Mwale

We had great boxers like Commonwealth Bantamweight Weight Champion Patrick Mambwe, Commonwealth Light Heavyweight Champion and world title contender Lottie “Gunduzani” Mwale, David Natta, Chisanda Mutti, Charm Chiteule, Kid Miller and others. Dino Giuseppin popularized cycling to a point where we had international cycle racing taking place in the country. Our secondary schools football team played against some of the best English youth clubs, right here in Zambia.

 Apart from the Zambia Golf Union which seems to raise a lot of money but is yet to give us a champion at the Open, every other sports association in this country is struggling and in a miserable state.

Zambian sports, from Independence to 1991 was able to survive because companies like the mines, parastatals and other private companies supported all kinds of sports at the highest level. The mines sponsored most the league sides in the country, especially on the Copperbelt. City Councils did not only have resources to collect garbage and provide clean water but were able to sponsor their own sports teams.

Ndola had football and netball teams supported by companies such as Vitaform United (Furncoz and Vitaform, Strike Rovers (ROP Limited), Ndola United (Ndola City Council ) and Zesco United. Zesco, Mornach, National Breweries, Zambia National Provident Fund and others had some of the top netball teams participating in a well-administered league.

The government of President Kaunda acknowledged the importance of a sporting nation and encouraged companies to build sporting complexes for their employees. This resulted in companies like the Bank of Zambia, Zambia State Insurance Corporation, Barclays Bank, ZANACO, Zambia National Provident Fund and others putting up all these complexes you see today. They were not built yesterday but are from the UNIP era.

KK: Sporting President 

The mines built their own sports complexes and had vibrant rugby clubs. State House even constructed a nine-hole golf course on the grounds because of a sporting President. The ZCCM Sports Festival was a huge event which was later extended to other parastatals and private companies. Today we have stadiums that were centers of weekend entertainment but are now completely dilapidated. Matero Stadium which has survived once hosted international athletic events. I remember watching one of Africa’s greatest athletes, Kipchoge Keino running there.

Sometime last year, I took my grandchildren to Buchi Stadium, the home of once soccer giants Kitwe United, where some of Zambia’s greatest players excited us. I could not help but shed a tear. I stood on that dry, hard and bumpy ground as if I were in an ancient Greek arena where Hercules or Spartacus fought the bad guys. In my mind, I could hear the crowds shouting “Ucar!”  Chifubu Stadium in Ndola is gone.

When I was at Colgate-Palmolive, I set up an unequaled sponsorship program called “Help Young Zambia” which was part of our Community Action Program (CAP). The program had a huge budget based on the company’s gross revenue and I had the full support of Colgate New York which believed that we had to put back money in the country where we did business as a way of saying “Thank you” to the people who bought our products. The support we received from various organs of the Party and its Government, including President Kaunda was most amazing, recognizing the difficulties we were going through as a company due to lack of foreign currency. Our remittances were stuck in the forex pipeline but we still plowed money into sports, health and education.

In spearheading the program, I believed that if Colgate supported sports at schools level, the various sporting associations would have a pool of sportsmen and women for the future. So, we annually sponsored the following:

Ø  Colgate-Palmolive Schools Volleyball Championships

Ø  Colgate-Palmolive Netball Championships,

Ø  Colgate-Palmolive Schools Athletics Championships

Ø  Colgate-Palmolive Schools Basketball Championships

Ø  Colgate-Palmolive International Junior Tennis Championships (It was part of the ITF Calendar)

Ø  Colgate-Palmolive Squash Championships

Ø  Colgate-Palmolive Caddies Golf Championships

Ø  The Colgate Colts (our own football team in the Ndola Amateur League)

Ø  The Colgate-Palmolive Champions of Champions Cup final was the richest soccer tournament in the land which was also the soccer season finale.

The interesting take here is that, companies supporting sport, even during this very difficult economic period, were willing to get involved in sports sponsorship.

There has to be a deliberate government policy that encourages and supports companies that sponsor sports by giving some kind of incentives, the same incentives which we give to foreign companies that come into the country to invest in selling furniture, trading and importing mangoes from their own countries and leave after they have looted enough. Supreme Furniture, Smart Center and Barnnets enjoyed their incentives, packed up and left leaving their Zambian employees in misery.

Sports administration in many of the associations is quite poor and we cannot expect to be in step with current world trends if all our administrators do is squabble and feed our sportsmen and women with stale manna. We send more officials than athletes to the Olympics.

Director of Sports Musa Kasonka (left)

Zambia used to have dedicated and seasoned sports administrators like Sports Director Musa Kasonka, Father Jude McKenna, Matilda Mwaba in Judo; Sarah Mulyata and Lillian Nkhuwa in Netball; Dino Guiseppin in cycling; Stan Smith, John Mufalali, Ziezi Limambala in athletics; Andy Lorryman in schools volleyball; David Phiri in football and golf; boxers and wrestlers were well-managed under Gibson Nwosu, Philip Nhekairo and Colonel Douglas Mbiya; Ernest Mate, Wilfred Wonani, Tom Mtine, Bennett Simfukwe and others managed football with passion.

Judo Sportswoman and Administrator
Matilda Mwaba

We need to train sports administrators and this is an area where our foreign missions abroad need to become active. A diplomat in England, for example, can make an effort to pay a courtesy call on one or more sporting associations like the Football Association or even sports clubs. This may culminate in the establishment of a relationship where a request is made and some of these organizations or clubs agree to sponsor the attachment of Zambian administrators in the relevant sports for a short period. Who knows, we could have some of soccer administrators and coaches spending two weeks at Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge seeing how these clubs are managed or at the Football Association Headquarters learning how football can make its own money and run without government support.

Our sports associations, especially the Football Association of Zambia must be given a time-frame in which to develop a strategy where they will run like a business and not a government parasite. There are areas in which they can run different businesses which will grow to a point where they will not need any government financial assistance every time. It is because of government’s unbridled handouts to FAZ that other sports associations remain unfunded and therefore unable to develop. FAZ should be in business selling sporting goods, publishing sports magazines or manufacturing nutritious energy drinks for sportsmen and women. 

Sharp shooter Norma Thompson

One of our major failures has been in the lack of sports development at early ages of our children. A sporting nation begins by providing facilities at the lowest level possible, but how can this be done in primary and secondary schools which are built with poor or no sporting facilities? How are these children going to learn gymnastics, swimming or relay races? Our children run school races in lanes of tall grass and you expect them to participate successfully at international meetings in the future?  

East & Central Africa Senior
Squash Champon
Robby Lingashi

Even the University of Zambia, The Copperbelt University or Evelyn Hone College do not have any modern sports centers and that should be a huge embarrassment to the country. These institutions should have top sports teams competing at national and international levels.  They should be churning out soccer stars, tennis players, swimming champions, world class athletes. Students cannot be sitting behind a desk all day and then go out to burn tyres on the roads and throw stones because of grievances all the time. There is need to brighten up the school environment. Government must as a priority construct complexes that cater for all kinds of sports and all the universities being built now must have sports complexes. Sports experts must then be employed as part of the whole program.

Our communities do not have recreational areas which can be used to develop our boys and girls into world class athletes; this must be brought to an end. Community centers where kids played table tennis are now taverns. We need to pay serious attention to proper sports development if we are to make a mark in world sports. Building a huge stadium which is only used for political rallies will not win us any gold medals in sports.

Finally, I think it is high time the people of Zambia were told the circumstances which led to the death of our football national team and officials in a plane crash over Gabon in 1993. The relatives of the deceased and all the people of Zambia need to be told the truth with no cover-up for diplomatic expediency. If the Zambian Government was to blame, then it must meet the necessary compensations. If a foreign country was involved it must also face the consequences. It is wrong to keep quiet. Those men had families who have a right to know what happened. The fact that subsequent government administrations coming to power have remained quiet tells me that they are hiding something.  Even in this country autopsies are conducted on questionable deaths and reports given to families. The Benghazi incident where the American Embassy was destroyed and the Ambassador killed has been a hot issue in America and Americans want to know the truth. Zambians want to know the truth about the Gabon air disaster.

It's just a thought.