The Sunday Mail
Mlondolozi Ndlovu
THIS is a response to an opinion by Va Shagare in this week’s edition of The Sunday Mail titled ‘the trouble with Mubaiwa’.
In the article the self proclaimed Dembare.coms founder tries unconvincingly to dismiss a democratically elected PSL leadership of Peter Dube and his CEO Kenny Ndebele.
Highlanders FC’s chairperson Dube was elected after resoundingly trouncing Dynamos’ leader Mubaiwa by 11 to 4 votes.
In his pursuit to push an agenda only known to himself, Va Shagare claims that the reasons why Mubaiwa lost the elections was because of his ‘surname’ among other baseless and frivolous reasons.
As if that is not enough he loosely translates Mubaiwa’s surname which means ‘get stabbed or the one who gets stabbed’ trying to justify the loss to some unknown forces.
The seemingly uninformed writer goes on to correctly respond to himself that the name of a candidate does not matter when it comes to elections, as one Manyengavana won in the Northern Division one league.
He answers himself very well that the losing Mubaiwa ‘does not take PSL business serious as he is in the habit of missing and on a few occasions he turns up, he spends most of his time in a phone’.
Honestly from Va Shagare’s self response it is clear that the governors needed more serious candidate who would whole heartedly address their concerns.
However, Va Shagare tends to cry more than the bereaved as he rightly quotes the losing Mubaiwa accepting the defeat and not mentioning the issue of regionalism which the unethical Va Shagare suggests in his article.
To prove that Va Shagare’s article was not in any way aimed at improving football but at setting an agenda to undemocratically sneak Mubaiwa into the vice chairman’s position.
He suggests that they are efforts to ‘co-opt’ Mubaiwa as the PSL Vice Chairperson something which is not in the PSL constitution and ZIFA statues which are very clear that members are voted for their positions.
Va Shagare sensationally claims that there is a ‘feeling that the PSL needs someone from the Northern Region’ based on the mere fact that the new PSL boss Dube and his CEO Ndebele are all from the Southern region.
Being in denial, Va Shagare quickly forgets that the immediate past PSL Chair Twine Phiri was from the Northern region and this was not by design but through an election.
Va Shagare should concern himself with the development of football and accept a constitutionally elected leadership.
As if that is not enough Vashagare further claims that there is hatred between Ndebele and Dube alleging that the two cannot meet eye to eye.
What a shame?
Those who attended the PSL will agree with me that Ndebele congratulated Dube and the two could be seen sharing jokes and laughing after lunch, hence Va Shagare should spare us his lies.
I have read Vashagare’s previous articles in his so called18area.com column and they incite hate especially through the use of improper language and a lot of deliberate omission of facts to suit his agenda.
A serious columnist for a national newspaper can never traverse the self destructive path akin to the one Va Shagare is taking by poking into the nose of professional football administrators.
It shows disregard of acceptable journalistic ethics expected in the exercise of a professional journalist, that is if Va Shagare intends to be taken serious as one.
Mlondolozi Ndlovu is a qualified journalist and a concerned football fan.
