SONGEZO ZIBI | SA’s soccer mess tells us a lot about our political mess

Last Saturday Kaizer Chiefs lost their fourth consecutive Dstv Premiership game. They are languishing in fifth place on the log, almost 20 points behind league winners, Mamelodi Sundowns. Amakhosi last won the premiership seven years ago.

On the same weekend, TimesLIVE reported that Jomo Cosmos had been relegated from the professional ranks, even though they remain under the stewardship of the club’s founder and owner, Jomo Sono. He is another legend, initially in the colours of Orlando Pirates and later New York Cosmos, where he earned the unambiguous respect of the game’s greatest of greats, Pele of Brazil.

Cosmos is another national footballing institution that should be some sort of national treasure, whose name elicits passion across the borders of the country. It is not and will likely never be.

Speaking of Orlando Pirates, a legendary club and one of SA’s two “Soweto giants” (alongside Chiefs), it lies fourth on the league table with no hope of winning the title this season or the next. It also has a rich trophy cabinet including glory in African continental competition. It is also internationally famous, and was the club at which both Sono and Kaizer Motaung became cult heroes before they struck out on their own.

Therefore, Orlando Pirates is legendary for a more profound reason, being the cradle of South African football, black football in particular.

The less said about Moroka Swallows, the better. Another famous South African club that used to pack stadiums to the rafters is a pale shadow of its former self.

Unsurprisingly, SA’s national team, Bafana Bafana, is also a continental and global nonentity. It is hard to believe that in 1996 it was crowned African champions and began to make a habit of reaching the knockout stages several times thereafter. These days we do not qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) or the World Cup.

SA is ranked 13th in Africa and 69th in the world, according to the latest Fifa national team rankings, behind the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Sport is critical to community and national life. It is a critical pillar of national pride and patriotism ... it teaches the young valuable life skills such as teamwork, leadership, emotional maturity, strategy and planning.

Together with Danny Jordaan of the SA Football Association, Motaung and Dr Irvin Khoza of Orlando Pirates have been at the top of South African football for decades. They have been part of its rise and its current precipitous demise. They will not see its rise again, not in their respective lifetimes, and neither will we.

I will later return to deal with the stunting effect of the old men controlling professional football and the destructive culture they have actively and inadvertently cultivated over the years.

First, let us talk about the meaning of football to black South Africans and the impact of its current lack of direction and meaning. Let us talk about the state of black sport, including the disgraceful role of our government and unimaginative thinking of our political class.

Sport is critical to community and national life. It is a critical pillar of national pride and patriotism. At a mass participation level, it teaches the young valuable life skills such as teamwork, leadership, emotional maturity, strategy and planning. It also teaches them resilience.

At a community level, it brings families, neighbours and friends together in support of one institution of which they can be proud. Think of the latest social media video of a sporting day at St Stithians College or Hilton College, whether it is rugby or football. The parents, their friends and neighbours are there — getting inspired by school war cries by schoolboys in full uniform.

But these are schools for the well-to-do. In addition to financial resources, they have powerful cultures and run things systematically. The public schools that have the same elements also tend to be in the suburbs. I never had such when I grew up in Mqanduli, or even when I eventually went to boarding school in the former Transkei.

Unlike the manicured playing fields of metropolitan, high-end suburban and private schools, millions of mostly black South African children make do with dismal facilities. Pavilions where supporters can sit and cheer are unknown, as are qualified coaches or organised parental support.

This is not to say there aren’t unsung heroes who try their hardest to give children a sense of sporting pride, but they do so under incredibly difficult conditions. They have neither financial nor material support in the form of proper facilities and upskilling. They often make significant personal sacrifices to give the children whatever they can muster. It’s depressing.

With no examples to follow and be part of at a local sporting level, these children worship at the altar of the Kaizer Chiefs, Orlando Pirates and Moroka Swallows of this world. For national pride, they look to Bafana Bafana. As I briefly chronicled earlier, these institutions are now no different to the culture of sporting neglect and failure they experience at school and community level.

Yes, I know there are a few communities where things are not so bad, but generally it is abysmal. In all Mqanduli there is not a single sporting facility with a stand for fans or a professionally constructed and maintained pitch. None in an area of over 3,000km2. It is not different in virtually all of King Sabata Dalindyebo municipality or even OR Tambo municipality.

As bad as it sometimes gets, the overall management of rugby and cricket at national level is still a cut above football. There are generally functioning structures and the national teams are globally competitive. Why is it that football cannot compete at continental level, when there is an abundance of cash here compared to poorer African countries that rank above us?

It is a lack of national purpose and direction, a lack of identity as a result of a broad national leadership that sees its task as a series of bureaucratic actions with no national vision. Its task is further complicated by its tendency to extract as much as it can. This is why successive foreign coaches at club and national level have spoken of listlessness among local players, a lack of hunger and ambition that is plentiful in other African countries.

For black players from poor backgrounds to make it to national team level in rugby and cricket, they must be insanely talented enough to be seen and plucked from their poor schools and planted in well-to-do schools. This is so that one day we can say the national team is transformed. But this is a mirage that, like many other things in South African life, gives us a false sense that things are OK when they are falling apart.

I suggest that for a minute we step out of our respective clubs (Kaizer Chiefs in my case) and reflect on the total situation. Let us think about the parlous state of black organised sporting life, which has a profound impact on black community life, the development of black children and the very existence of cohesive communities that have a sense of identity.

Let us reflect on the many parallels between sport and politics – how stuck we remain under the stewardship of old men and women who did much in the past but are no longer any good for the success we must achieve in the future. And how we are seemingly powerless to do anything about it because “success” depends on not stepping on those same old toes that are particularly tender and sensitive.

The situation is not hopeless in that a different path is possible, but it needs bravery and hard work. That path involves integrating political and national vision that conceives and understands what needs to be done in terms of interrelated communal imperatives where the state, the private sector and community leadership work towards a clear set of goals.

In that context, education and schooling are much more than producing good academic results; they create the centre of community, and the cradle of national life and identity.

No society can achieve overall success when its key pillars are failing, and the people involved in each of those spheres have neither the will to fight for a better future nor an overarching vision. This task is particularly important if we are deliver a different and better quality of life in black communities, and the social cohesion so many politicians speak meaninglessly about.

One mental hurdle we must overcome is accepting that people we have revered all our lives in politics and sport must go, and that we must grow up and accept the responsibility of leadership to chart a different path. That means seeing politics, sports and culture as key battlefield areas that we must win to have a winning nation.

Anything less is mere fantasy and a guarantee that SA as a whole will continue to fail at the most elementary things.

Songezo Zibi is chair of the Rivonia Circle.