WILL KALUSHA BWALYA’S LEGACY AND STATUS BE TARNISHED BY HIS PURSUIT OF FAZ LEADERSHIP?

Is Kalusha Bwalya diminishing his excellent football legacy slowly with his appeals against FAZ? The short answer is ‘No”.

The long answer is really long and very copious in the praise of The Icon. Here goes…

You will notice that in all my articles I have avoided partisan politics. Many people who support Kamanga say Kalusha lost it when he joined partisan politics. They say that because he didn’t stay clear of politics in the first place, the chickens have come home to roost and that since he laid the bed of political confrontations, then he has to sleep in it! The argument that sports is a very unifying factor and politics are divisive generally sounds correct but is practically wrong. Sports have politics.

I insist that the decision for Kalusha to join politics is only his and he has his rights of association as enshrined in Part III of the Constitution of the Republic of Zambia in the Bill of Rights. Of course, if I was to advise him I would have said: “You can’t go to politics and then get back to football because it is hard to do things that way but you are free to do it”. And those close to me know I am always willing to advise. But advice done directly and in person is hard to do because the people who need the most advice many times make themselves inaccessible. This is not even about Kalusha. Generally, Zambians are hard to advise.

So why do I insist that no matter what happens Kalusha’s stock will remain unblemished?

First Kalusha’s star is larger than Zambia. So even if everyone in Zambia hated Kalusha, he would still remain a global star in the rest of Africa and foreign territories outside Zambia.

Secondly, Kalusha Bwalya is not an average Joe. He is a huge brand. He holds a record of scoring in four different AFCONs including 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008 alongside Samuel Eto’o (who was among the Cameroon team that won back to back AFCON titles in 2000 and 2002 and also featured four more editions (2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010), scoring at least a goal in each of them) and Ghana’s Asamoah Gyan. Great Kalu is a winner of the African Footballer of the Year award and the only winner from Southern Africa. He is an AFCON winner and a hat-trick scorer at the Olympics. The man can speak many languages, and apart from studying at the university, Kalusha is the most qualified Zambian coach. Ever!

The highest qualified Zambian coach is the former national team coach and former FAZ president Kalusha Bwalya, who has a UEFA A, while among the coaches active, Dan Kabwe, Honour Janza and Kelvin Kaindu have UEFA Bs. The late KK 11 ’94 teammate to Kalu, Ben Pabili Bamfuchile, should have had a B as well.

Despite the bad stories, he remains a great man. In showbiz, they say no publicity is bad publicity. Kalusha has been a SuperSport pundit before, world cup bid ambassador for South Africa and done a lot of things that cast him in the limelight. As such, Kalusha should be worth millions (in real money) given where he reached in his football career.

So why the hatred?

Yesterday there was an article that circulated trying to paint the big man black including issues of his private life. Every soccer fan who loves the sport should condemn such and shouldn’t encourage circulating that articles. Ine I can’t even share or read to the end. These news stories or posts are just a facade for patent vitriol which do not merit bylines in any respected news outlet. It’s a pity that Kalusha Bwalya has to find himself in such a mess when he has already earned his kudos and we should be idolized. It’s a pity that he faces such hatred and I really feel sorry for him. The Icon (as I love to call him) is Zambia’s national hero and a world-renowned football talent that should not be reduced to this kind of publicity.

The hatred comes from not recognizing his freedoms whether he is making mistakes or not. If he wants to challenge his exclusion from the elections and is using the legal and constitutional means, allow him to do so in peace. This is because Kalusha Bwalya is a national treasure. He is a hero. And a hero’s deeds last … For us who watched him play, no matter what he does during these elections, he is still a hero and we will still love him! No one can take away what he has achieved on and off the pitch. It is wrong to try and reduce his achievements or try and tarnish his integrity because of some lapses in judgment he may have made from time to time. He was good on the pitch and also off the pitch and may have made a mistake here and there but he remains Great Kalu till death and he is entitled to take his heroism to the grave because no mortal human being is capable of peak performance throughout their lifetime. Don’t cling to the FIFA ban in the public domain. He served his time. Even if the CAS later finds him ineligible to stand due to the integrity test, don’t rub it in. The man should always be celebrated. Anyone who travels knows that in airports when stamping your passports, you are always asked about Kalusha Bwalya and Kenneth Kaunda. KB is an icon we are proud of. And should be proud of. Warts and!

Should Kalusha stay clear of politics in the first place? In retrospect, “yes” because he wants to make a come back to football administration. It’s not a good idea to go to partisan politics and then come back to football. But if he wanted to join politics and remain there, I would say that would be a brilliant move as I feel Kalusha should now be a minister or ambassador as he ages slowly. He has “earned his badges”. Should the Ministry of Foreign Affairs fast-track his appointment despite the low queues of potential ambassadors? Pretoria looks good to me.

Should he be encouraged to think about coaching job – either with a local Zambian team or even here in SA – since he has all the qualifications and experience for that type of job? “No”. Even if they say sometimes you have to lower your expectations/ambitions when dealing with reality, this one is too low for him now. This man was leading committees at FIFA and can’t sit on a bench ordering physios to put rub-on on players and asking players to track back on the pitch.

And then there is the issue of Facebook, phone and banter battles between rival camps of supporters. Philosophically, I think the fighting between the Kalusha camp and the Kamanga camp is good. This is so that the fight takes place and issues which were buried for many years can be aired, spoken about and eventually resolved or buried for good. We need this battle so we close the chapter once and for all.

I am not saying this to be politically correct. I personally know that and I have said that I think Kalusha doesn’t have a strong case and I doubt that he will find himself on the ballot papers. I have repeatedly said he is our greatest Icon save for KK. And he has a democratic right to fight his cases. It’s the times when the fight touches on arrests or threats we cringe. It is the reason I always call for reconciliation saying it is needed more than anything else. Otherwise, the sport of football won’t make it. If the reconciliation is started and one of either Kamanga or Kalusha doesn’t get on board then we will all know who the problem is. Simple.

Then there are those who belong to political parties who either support or hate Kalusha. If you belong to UPND and hate Kalusha because he campaigned for PF, you are wrong my sister. If you belong to PF and support Kalusha only because he campaigned for PF, again you are wrong. Kalusha is bigger than PF and UPND. He belongs to all of us. This is why I have a problem with people who try and make this whole thing look as if it is GRZ and Eagle 1 who are against Kamanga. I know for a fact that president Edgar Lungu has not taken sides in the FAZ issues and I challenge anyone who wants to argue on this point whether you are a minister or cadre or just a soccer fan to come out in the open. The president is for all of us and he knows football clubs from around Zambia all belong to FAZ and he being patron has always been neutral.

Lastly, to show that I have always held this view, let me remind the reader that in 2018 I said this: “I respect Kalusha Bwalya more than Ponga Liwewe. Simply by the fact that Kalu excelled at his calling more than Ponga has excelled at his. But I respect both. Lastly, I don’t think Kalu will be seriously damaged by the FIFA ban or the article by Ponga. King Kalu will live on and his name will survive long after all of you reading this are long dead and are mere skeletons.”**

In ending, remember that argumentum ad hominem, or attacking the messenger instead of the message, is failing to challenge me intellectually whenever I write; a thing we Zambians are not good at. Instead what we need is more write-ups, let those attacking or defending Kalu do their own write-ups. But respect the icon while you do that. Telling me I am paid by Kalusha to write this or by Kamanga to write other articles does not do justice to my articles. Real writers do it for authenticity and purity albeit doing it at a risk to their well-being. They don’t do it for the money or name or to earn something in the future. Don’t tell me to shut up or that I am writing senseless stuff. My articles have their own audiences and if you find them irrelevant, just ignore them and those who wanna read them will make use of it. It’s a Zambian weakness to want people to keep quiet. Self-censorship is allowed but not worth it for serious writers. You write something and you are threatened with lawsuits or you are physically attacked. But it comes with the territory of writing; it’s a choice a writer makes when he embarks on a journey of writing. Zambians love to pull the Ph.D. card when called to order. Let’s own up when we come short. No wonder we don’t have Zambian books. In America, I would have been writing books on these topics and you would be buying them since I usually have something different, real and original to say. As to whether this is the best time to write my articles, I think there is no good timing to write. Any time is a good time. If you write and you cause reactions and comments and you have everyone talking, then you have hit the nail on the head.

***Shalala Oliver Sepiso (2018) “Ponga’s article is excellent and it is balanced both on the good and on the bad – Shalala Oliver” August 27, 2018, Zambian Observer. https://www.zambianobserver.com/pongas-article-is-excellent-and-it-is-balanced-both-on-the-good-and-on-the-bad/ [Retrieved on 10th April 2020]