Fifa has no hope against the muti magic

First the Germans promised to send armed guards to protect their soccer squad from the minute it touched down on South African soil.

Then British hooligans hastily commissioned one of their own to design an anti-stab suit to be worn by supporters while attending matches at the upcoming World Cup.

Now Fifa authorities have come up with yet another excuse, concern, or whatever you want to call it, about South Africa hosting the World Cup. They aver that the traditional herbs that our players use in preparation for matches are actually performance-enhancing drugs that can't be detected by their World Anti-Doping Agency.

But if African muti was such a threat in world soccer surely Africans would be ruling the soccer roost?

Again, the authorities are missing trees for the woods: the herbs that some players ingest before play do exist. But it is the muti rituals that are actually the centre piece of match preparation. And the rituals are unscientific and mind-bogglingly intriguing. Some say superstitious, or supernatural.

For example, when my father was still running his second division soccer club, the players would be forbidden to have contact with women. Well, it's obvious, they had to preserve their strength.

But what I found intriguing was when my father and the club inyanga would light a fire, sprinkle some foul-smelling powder into it, and then invite the players to jump over the flames while shouting some warlike incantation. Sometimes the inyanga would spray the players with intelezi, a herb historically and culturally used by warriors before venturing into battle. When the club was going to play a particularly big match, a chicken would be slaughtered and its blood mixed with some powder. Each player would in turn have an incision made on his wrist with a razor blade. The chicken blood and dark powder mixture would be rubbed into the incision, causing the player to wince. This would happen just hours before the big match.

Each club in the township of my childhood had its own rituals. Some of the clubs, like Highlanders, it was whispered, used to bury foul-smelling herbs at the centre of the pitch the night before. Whatever was buried there was meant to weaken the opposition. There were others who buried the stuff next to the opposition's goalposts - this to cause the goalkeeper to be assailed by hallucinations.

Which reminds me of a boxing match between Elijah "Tap Tap" Makhathini and Daniel Mapanya back in the day. After succumbing to a volley of blows from "Tap Tap", Mapanya was quoted by Bona magazine as having said that his opponent's muti was so strong that whenever he tried to attack Makhathini, his weak punches would be blocked by a big elephant, which elephant ultimately hit him in his face with its trunk, and he hit the canvas. Teeheehee!

But I digress.

In this day and age, there are some professional soccer clubs in this country that still swear by these rituals. As you can tell from my tone here, I am not thoroughly convinced by the efficacy thereof. After all the rituals that my father's team engaged in, we continued to be systematically and consistently thrashed - which is why we never made first division. Instead, our players were poached by the bigger clubs. But, hey, who am I? People believe these things.

James Dlamini, the manager of AmaZulu FC, told The Citizen recently: "Muti is part of our culture and heritage and I am not ashamed to say we use it. We believe in it and even though some teams might distance themselves saying that they don't use it, they are lying."

That is very honest and much closer to the truth. All the major clubs interviewed by the newspaper distanced themselves from muti, saying instead that they relied on the power of prayer. But we know otherwise.

Jomo Sono, as I reported in this column not so long ago, has had nasty experiences whenever his team has played in Limpopo. Sono was unequivocal in stating that when members of his team entered the dressing room allocated to them they would suddenly feel dizzy, so strong was the stench of herbs that had been sprayed there.

Not only is the stench nauseating, it is also sleep-inducing, so that by the time the visitors leave the dressing room after a pep talk with the coach, all they want to do is sleep.

These rituals are generally about psychological manipulation. You want your opponent to believe that you have stronger muti - and so you do these funny things and you make sure reports about them are leaked to all relevant people, like the press and your opponents.

The All Blacks have the haka, and Barcelona have a chapel leading off the players' tunnel. Locally, SuperSport United, at the behest of assistant coach Thomas Madigage, spray their players with "holy water" obtained from the Zion Christian Church, of which he is a member. They make a show of the spraying ritual - to drive the fear of God into the hearts of the opposition.

Now, how does Fifa handle that side of muti?