Under what was supposed to be new and dynamic leadership at the Super League of Malawi (Sulom), one team has three matches in hand in the Super League.
Under what was supposed to be game changing stewardship, there is nothing to fight for any more in the Super League, more so because, by now, it is clear that other teams are chasing the shadows of the Super League title because three matches in hand simply means three more chances at grabbing the title.
In an ideal world, this was not supposed to be the case. In an ideal world, all teams should have had an equal number of matches played or, in the worst case scenario, one, two or three teams should have many matches in hand.
Get me right here. I am saying some teams would have had matches in hand in the worst case scenario.
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But, then, this is not an ideal world. In this strange world, a league management body decided to flout its own rules by allocating matches to a team that was not supposed to be allocated matches— and at the request of that team, for that matter.
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I cannot imagine that, if my favourite team Chitipa United were to make the same request, it would have been granted. But this is a strange world, after all.
Of course, everything rises and falls on leadership. It is not me saying this; this is an old adage credited to John C. Maxwell. Well, not that I want to focus on whether Sulom leadership is good or not; my focus today is on why Sulom could manage the league in such a way that a team finds itself having three matches in hand.
For me, this kills the spirit of football. The ‘spirit’ of football is competitive, by the way. In a case where some teams have more matches in hand than others, it becomes easy for some teams to give up.
When some teams give up because they feel, in the deep of their hearts, that there is no way they can catch up with other teams, football suffers and the spirit of competition and fair play, which is at the heart of football, dies.
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It does not necessarily die a nature death; it is killed. What a tragedy.
When the season started, and looking at the way Silver Strikers, for example, started the season, I was hopeful that a new dawn for Malawi football was here.
To say the truth, Silver Strikers were playing good football. The team’s players became tough as a tick. At that point of the season, teams that were facing Silver Strikers, the Bankers as the team’s lovers call it, were shaking in the knees even before getting to the pitch.
To make it even sweeter, the Bankers hired one of my favourite coaches, the flamboyant Hendrikus Pieter de Jongh.
The Dutch coach enthralled ‘real’ football lovers— I am talking about lovers of football and not people who are in football by chance—with his forthright talk. For instance, he faulted most of the country’s football pitches for being as bumpy as a freshly dug and filled grave.
And, for that, he got some flak from people who do not appreciate quality.
Hendrikus Pieter de Jongh— an experienced man who has coached teams such as Budapest Honvéd, Kenyan Premier League side A.F.C. Leopards, F.C. Cape Town, among other teams— also faulted some men and women in uniform for giving football a bad name in the country. He could not be entirely wrong, for some men and women in uniform have seemingly been taking pressure in flashing yellow and red cards in his face.
His crime? His penchant for the truth.
Just recently, Hendrikus Pieter de Jongh— I am mentioning his full name as an expression of reverence because of the way he has made some football administrators wake up in this country— complained that three back-to-back matches Silver Strikers were to play would put his team at a disadvantage. He said nowhere in countries he has coached has he heard about that kind of thing.
Again, he was right.
These and many factors have conspired to frustrate Silver Strikers’ bid for the Super League title. Remember that the Area 47 outfit has not won the league title for the past decade. And, if ever there was a time it was supposed to grab it, it was now.
But, then, at this juncture in the Super League season, the number of matches in hand that some teams have surely means the Bankers’ title hopes have been washed away by the waters of reality.
People have been saying some teams have been doing well recently, such that this is making the league interesting. Get it from me; there is no real competition. What is being mistaken for competition is a bluff meal.
I am not even excited, going into the final matches of the season, because those who are managing the Super League have messed up big time on fixtures, thereby killing real competition Someone has failed, somewhere.
