OF TACTICS AND A TACTLESS TEAM FOR SALE

Flames: Don't you dare talk about their tactics again

Seems like this week the Flames win over Benin has been overshadowed by news making rounds that one football commentator from MBC was scheming with the enemy to sell them tactics on how to beat the Flames. The football fraternity couldn’t do otherwise but box him to the corner calling him all sorts of names as long as he is labelled a “traitor” and “unpatriotic”.

 

As a football fan myself and somebody who once worked on the sports desk at MBC, I thought the best way for me is not to take sides but look at the other side of the debate.

For starters what are the charges being levelled against the said reporter? Is it match fixing? Corruption? Theft? Or what? We need to be clear here because all am hearing are people moaning and groaning that the reporter was not patriotic to have hatched up with the enemy to sell them the "tactics".

Last time I checked we cannot force individuals to be patriotic. It’s just a matter of principal and passion not regulation. That’s why we have seen coaches leading a team from another country in beating a team from their own country even at international level. I guess in our context that’s being unpatriotic, huh? Who eats patriotism at the same time? 

Not that I am speaking in praise of the behavior of soliciting bribes to sell out tactics to the enemy but my interest is on the charges leveled against the commentator.  

Now we are hearing reports that the Football Association of Malawi has banned the journalist from reporting anything to do with the Malawi National Football team. I need to understand which article is FAM using in its statutes to ban the reporter? Is the reporter a FAM employee? Was he sent to Benin by FAM and that he was answerable to them on his conduct? Was he in Benin working for FAM or MBC as his employer?

The issue here is about the reporter allegedly soliciting bribes which is against the code of ethics of journalism so is FAM the right body to punish journalists who don’t abide by their code of ethics? 

To me the crime committed was against the profession not against the game because there is no rule in football that says “though shall not be seen chatting with the enemy” but in journalism soliciting bribes can become an offence if it was meant to influence some decisions in the course of the the journalist's work. Or lets just call this one an abuse of office at least it sounds better.

But then our evidence is based on some text which says "I will help you with information to beat the Flames at home... I promise to do anything possible, lets talk". Yes, this was not supposed to come from a Journalist let alone a Malawian who wishes the flames well, but then we need to look at both sides of the debate so that next time the right punishment should be melted down to wanna be offenders.

If say Benin comes to Malawi, engages me as their consultant to reveal to them one or two secrets about the Flames’ style of play what’s the name of that crime again? So I will be banned by FAM from attending any Flames game?

So in this country Football commentators are affiliated to FAM? that's an award winning joke. I have never heard of anything like that happening elsewhere in the world.

FAM is there to manage football not to regulate the conduct of journalists in the country. If the reporter was wrong let MBC punish him and other relevant bodies because it’s only MBC that can question the conduct of its employees not FAM. The FA can only investigate and report the journalist to his employers and other legal bodies that deal with matters of this nature.

And I hear of Flames tactics, which tactics? I can write about the Flames tactics each time I want and that’s not a crime. Newspapers have written about flames tactics even a day before a crucial game. 

Tactics can never be treated as secrets. We have watched the Flames before and we know their strengths and weaknesses. We can tell which team will start, which players will field on what position even before kick-off, so which tactics are we making noise about?

Let’s accept we have a tactless team that has only the Angola 2010 to show us as an achievement and not even Peter 40 can make the team qualify or fail to qualify simply because he had a chat with officials from Benin.

Talking about FAM, this is another bunch of clueless individuals that have failed to raise the profile of our National Team.

Let those without sin at FAM be the first ones to cast a stone at Peter 40 for having a chat with Benin officials about the Flames’ tactics. 

Let those that have never written anything about the flames tactics in the media be the first to cast a stone at this commentator. To me the issue here is about the alleged soliciting of bribes not the revealing of Flames’ tactics. At the same time it will become a very big issue if FAM finds some elements of match fixing in the whole episode, otherwise we are busy amplifying nothing at all.