It has been an established tradition that individuals who happen to be selected to lead different sports organizations turn them into empires which they intend to rule throughout their lifetime.
There are number of sports organizations and clubs which have been for a long period lead by the very same faces and replacing them has been impossible despite their dismal effectiveness as sports leaders.
This fact can be easily validated if one goes through the names of the just elected leaders of the different regional football federations all over the country.
Most of the regional football associations` leaders have been there for long without making any development of the game.
Their long stay in leadership has made them work mechanically without reasoning much when conducting the daily chores of the associations.
This tendency has led to stagnation of the game’s development because most of such leaders are too adamant to carry on board any new ideas from those outside their leadership cluster.
Apparently, is from this common practice of fearing change that an individual; in the name of the executive committee of the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF), urged the current president Leodegar Tenga to vie for the post for the second term.
The same call for Tenga to vie for the post was supported a week later by the Brazilian national coach Marcio Maximo and the Morogoro Regional Football Association (MRFA) leadership.
There are so many reasons which are being given for their call for Tenga to vie for the post but I have a feeling that the calls are coming too prematurely.
I am forced to say that the call has come prematurely because Tenga has shown no signs of not contesting for the post.
Tenga is a mature and reasonable individual who has been in sports leadership circles for long so he knows the right time to push the right buttons.
It is said that Tenga was reluctant to vie for the post during the first TFF elections four years ago, but he accepted after being pleaded by a group of `respectable people.
If that is true, then he has individuals who can advice him as they did in 2004 in case they seem to acknowledge that he has delivered the desired goods.
The four years of his existence in TFF has brought a lot of changes in the way soccer is organised and managed.
Since the statute of the TFF had to abide to the demands of FIFA statute, there have been a lot of changes in the way different committees of the federation operate, hence bringing about a notable change to the local soccer image.
TFF has not achieved the goals single handedly but has done so with a very good assistance from the government.
The government’s political will to see sports develop, soccer in particular; has to the big extent helped TFF to achieve its goals in elevating the country’s soccer standard.
Having noted that the TFF was dilly-dallying in hiring a competent coach for the national team, the government went further by hiring Maximo.
By hiring a coach and assuring his upkeep, the government shouldered a big burden which wouldn’t have been easy to be carried by the TFF.
In this case then, any TFF`s notable achievement shall also be attributed to the government`s efforts to see soccer prosper.
Tenga knows very well the state of affairs in the federation he has been heading for the last four years.
He knows a lot about a number of sleepless nights which he has spent striving to see the national teams perform well by spending most of his time in meetings with sponsors, government officials as well as his executive committee.
Tenga who once resigned fro the Vice Chairperson of the National Sports Council (NSC) knows very well the dark side of sports leadership in a developing country like ours.
Ostensibly, his experiences in different sports leadership posts have given him a lot of experience to make judgments of his own. I would rather advice those who urge him to vie for the second term understand that Tenga is mature enough to know what is ahead of him and make the right decision. I am just thinking aloud.
- SOURCE: Guardian
