If you are a firm believer in statistics like me, you can safely say there is no football to talk about in Sweden. However, there is no doubt Gutu will earn more greenbacks than the lads at the Glamour Boys and his manager Calvin Nyazema will not withdraw him on the eve of a big match as was the case at Dynamos as his salary is guaranteed to reflect in his bank account every month-end.
The million-dollar question is: are local players not good enough to make it in the big leagues in Europe or agents are just desperate to get a contract for their players no matter the status of the club?
Gutu joins the high number of Zimbabwean players who join the backwaters of European football. I will not bother you with what Gutu’s new club has done in the world of football.
You can google that and discover that they play in Sweden’s top league called Allevenskan and the Red Brothers have never made an impact in the Uefa Champions League. However, the usual line that we get from agents and managers when our players sign for these small clubs is that they will use it as a stepping stone to the big clubs in Europe. My foot!
Zimbabwe is littered with typical examples of players who have been shunted to small clubs in Europe only to be forgotten when they get there. Clemence Matawu, Costa Nhamoinesu, Noel Kaseke, Obadiah Tarumbwa, Newton Katanha and Cephas Chimedza, the list is endless.
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We also have a typical example of Justice Majabvi, who was shunted to Austria’s Lask Linz in 2009 but his contract was not renewed this season. This has led to one of the longest club hunting, which saw him in Poland where he failed to get a contract.
What is amusing is that Majabvi ended up in South Africa last month and went for trials at three clubs: Wits, Kaizer Chiefs and Bloemfontein Celtic, but failed to get a contract.
Does this mean that Majabvi is not good enough to even make the grade in South Africa, or maybe he was just rushed to the wrong club in Europe before he was ripe? Paul Mitchell of Siyavuma Sports, who was arranging the trials for Majabvi, said he is taking the player to Asia.
Mitchell had this to say after Majabvi failed to land a contract at Wits: “The thing is that they have a problem with their foreign quota and unfortunately that has stopped us from being able to conclude anything. But he is going overseas and I am just waiting for the paperwork and then he will be leaving around September 12.
He is going to a big club in Asia that put an offer to us before, in the January transfer window and they have to come back to us,” Mitchell was quoted by South Africa football newspaper Soccer Laduma.
Rather than rushing our players to these small clubs in Europe, it is better to take the players to the South Africa premiership. We have success stories of our players coming from Super Diski. Benjani Mwaruwari horned his skills there before he was taken to European clubs, among them France’s AJ Auxerre, Switzerland’s FC Grasshopper and finally the English premiership at Portsmouth, Blackburn Rovers and Manchester City. We are not doing our football any good by shunting our players to small clubs in Europe in return for small returns to the players while killing their careers.
BY FANUEL VIRIRI
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