AFRICAN football has loyalty issues which cut across the board: while players are expected to be loyal to their clubs, the same cannot be said about the clubs.
There is a serious and urgent need for African football clubs to start treating their players better during and after they entertain the multitudes of fans who pay for the privilege of watching these men and women in action. They deserve to be hailed and not just when they die.
And yet these same players who gave their all for these clubs and these fans are not given due respect and honour. Loyalty is expected but never is given in return.
This is mostly evident with players who are at community owned clubs who sadly look at their players as property deserving very little of their empathy.
But a look at company or individual owned teams paints a different picture which is why these clubs have managed to command loyalty from their players especially after retirement.
A player at an army side remains a soldier even when they stop playing football. And during their playing days, such a player is well looked after, remember that former Zambian skipper was promoted by his employer, the Zambian Army after electrifying performances during the Africa Cup of Nations.
Players who were at company owned sides were given jobs to look after themselves well after their sell-by date.
Footballers, clubs and fans have one expectation: Loyalty! But this has become an expensive commodity in our game. Football fans tend to be highly loyal to their group, just as the kin groups of our ancestral past would have been.
This intense state of belonging, when a person feels as one with their group, is called identity fusion. Loyalty is not acquired neither should it be considered a given!
And the same can be said about footballers! And should be said about clubs too! In Europe, when a legend of the past is commemorated, usually a star of the present is further venerated. Legends of yesteryear are celebrated by fans and colleagues alike. But a lot needs to be done for our football family to honour our own with the same pomp and fanfare, preferably when they are still alive.
And in my view, the concept of loyalty has been evaporated across the board: players are no longer as loyal to their clubs, clubs have lost interest in being loyal to their players and fans have lost their voice during matches! A lot is often said when a player moves from one club to another, but very little is investigated into the reasons for such departures.
The football fans and club’s outrage of the jilted ignores a simple truth that professional footballers move clubs. It also skirts the idea that many players may not actually be that club’s fans. They probably never had the chance to be so. On a Saturday or Sunday, they have always been playing. And not even the one-club men are chest-beating loyalists.
A most certain fact is that when a footballer leaves a club, or when their club has dispensed with their services, they will invariably play elsewhere. After all, football is their profession, their livelihood. Taking up a better offer is an accepted part of modern employment yet footballers are somehow supposed to be different.
“One greedy so and so,” is the regular chant aimed at a former hero turned villain.
But loyalty cuts both ways in football, and players have had theirs tested over the years. In the era before ‘freedom of contract’, and well before Jean-Marc Bosman, many a player were considered contract rebels.
Players will leave eventually but rather than focusing on the reasons for departure, players are slammed left. Right and centre for making such decisions. Whenever a player decides to leave a club for a higher pay deal at another club, fans always label him a “greedy, money-grabber” who should have shown more loyalty to his current club.
Even ignoring the ambition part of it, why should a player show loyalty to their club? Unless they have an actual link to the club, then at the heart of it, the club is merely an employer. Is his or her club showing the same loyalty to the footballer? Are the fans showing their favoured player the same loyalty?
A career in football is fairly short in the big scheme of things, so you have to make the most of it while you can.
If a high-flying lawyer was offered the chance to double his salary by switching to a rival company, he would and nobody would even think that he should have shown loyalty to his previous employer.
So why exactly should a footballer be any different?
Loyalty also works two ways. It is difficult to argue that players should show loyalty to a club when the clubs so often show no loyalty towards the players. Clubs have a tendency to show little loyalty to their players, shifting them onto other clubs because they weren’t in the club’s plans anymore or unwilling to look after their well-being without being prompted to.
If the club will show so little loyalty to players, then it is difficult to argue that the players should show any great loyalty in return. You are required to be loyal to your club, but only if you are able. They will certainly not be loyal to you when you are not able.
These players have a close affinity with the clubs, having come through their academies, and in most cases, being supporters of the club since they were young. However, there is also a common theme amongst those players. They are all playing at the top clubs in the world.
For argument’s sake, do people seriously think that if a player had been at his hometown club, Gweru United, he would have shown the same loyalty? Of course, he wouldn’t. He is a top player and wants to win trophies and succeed. To do this, you need to play for the top clubs.
For top quality players, the only time they will show loyalty is if they have an affinity with the club and are already at a top club. But then, can we really call it loyalty? Could they really find a better deal and be more likely to win trophies elsewhere? Or are they just already at the peak of their chosen profession?
In the end, fans have a great loyalty to their own club. They automatically assume that the players at the club should show the same loyalty. But offer almost any of those fans the opportunity to switch jobs in exchange for doubling their salary, and I can guarantee that 99.9 percent of them would jump at the chance.
For professional footballers, football is their job and the club is their employer. There is no more loyalty from them than from any other professional to their employer. So we should not expect them to show any great loyalty to their club if the club has not returned the favour and done the same for the player.
Truly I say to you no prophet is welcome in his home town (Luke 4 v 24). Until next time. May our Good Lord continue to Bless us all. Amen