By Onny Gangata
IN a season that promised so much and yet delivered very little for Sheasham fc, club chairperson Reginald Chidawanyika gave a candid assessment of his side’s past season in the Premier Soccer League (PSL).
The Gweru based side together with three other teams- Black Rhinos, Triangle and Cranborne Bullets- were all demoted from the country’s elite football league back into the lower division.
The construction boys managed to accrue 35 points all season and were five points behind Yadah Stars who occupied the last safety spot.
Relegation for the Lizwe Sweswe coached outfit was agonizing given the massive investment club owner Clever Mandaza put into the project.
Sheasham were one of the few teams in the PSL that had their own stadium to use, after Mandaza poured in over US$ 500 000 in renovating Bata stadium.
In an exclusive interview with The Echo Sports, Chidawanyika highlighted several areas where the club fell short in its quest to preserve premiership status. Poor recruitment on the transfer market, playing home away from home and poor match officiating are some of the issues he flagged as contributing to his side’s relegation.
PSL A STEEP STEP CLIMB
“Firstly from my personal perspective the Premier Soccer League is an elite league. It’s completely regulated by statutes and has a more functional secretariat that implements the statutes,” the respected Gweru lawyer reflected on the past season.
“For example, if you look at the grounds, they try to at least ensure that the ground conform to a basic minimum standard. Now for a team that gets promoted from the region where the grounds are not as regulated, one day you play in grounds without basics, the PSL becomes a steep step that you jumped.”
Sheasham’s home ground was not homologated at the start of the season, as it was still undergoing renovations, which saw the Gweru side using Mandava stadium in Zvishavane as their temporary base.
At Mandava, Sheasham failed to register a single victory only managing draws, something Chidawanyika says negatively impacted on their overall seasons’ target of surviving relegation.
“As a new comer you have the ground issue to deal with, whereas you were playing in front of your fans every fortnight, in the PSL you are home away from home,” he added.
“That alone is tough to deal with. When you hire the stadium, the landlord wants rentals up-front, the police also want payments upfront because they have never dealt with you, ambulances hire, PA system etc.”
He added; “Your home supporters have to incur the financial burden of travelling to home matches, it’s expensive to host a home match as a new entrant without a stadium. At the end of every match it’s a loss, the games in Zvishavane came as a drain to our small passionate supporters.”
POOR MATCH OFFICIATING AND POLARITY IN THE LEAGUE
Like many football stakeholders, Chidawanyika added his voice on the deteriorating match officiating standards in the country, adding that the ignominy in the local game is reinforced by the media, whom he accused of turning a blind eye to these vices.
“Referees, it’s an area that needs more attention at national level, there is football polarisation,” he noted.
“Certain journalists would not report the bad officiating that happened even on national television because it involves certain teams.
When a referee does the same say at Bata, that’s the only thing that they will run with.They put pressure on the referees coming to officiate at Bata thereby sometimes causing more damage to us the smaller teams.”
POOR RECRUITMENT STRATEGY
He however, admitted his committee’s shortfalls on the recruitment side, pointing out that their squad was generally not good enough to compete.
During preseason, the construction boys largely depended on players who had been deemed excess baggage elsewhere such as ex- Caps United duo of Tichaona Zota and Diego Makurumidze, as well as Tanaka Chidhobha who failed to make the great at Dynamos.
“I also learnt that possibly we could have recruited better in terms of experienced players,” he admitted, before adding, “It’s unfortunate that we could not afford to bring all the players that had been targeted by our head coach then(John Nyikadzino) due to a number of reasons. Some teams,mostly in central region refused to release players to us even on loan.Some asked for hefty amounts as loan fees, the irony of it is that they are teams some of them that our president has assisted financially in the past,we also underestimated the level of the PSL generally.”
CORRECTIVE MEASURES
Sheasham coach, Sweswe in his post match interview after the loss to FC Platinum pointed out the absence of a proper footballing structure at the club.
“One thing you can tell is the direction of the football, there is no direction when we have no development,” fired the former FC Platinum gaffer.
To their credit, Sheasham have began setting up structures for junior development with recruitment of under 13,15 and 17 players.
“The juniors has always been part of our vision, we need to have a well defined junior structure. This will address some of the things that affected us adversely in the PSL,”said Chidawanyika.
