FOOTBALL CLUB OWNERSHIP IN ZAMBIA
WHAT happened to Nchanga Rangers FC, Ndola United FC, Railway Express FC, Konkola Blades FC, Lusaka Tigers FC, City of Lusaka FC, Real Nakonde FC, Konkola Mine Police FC, Kabwe United FC, Vita Foam FC and many other defunct football clubs in Zambia? Some of the country’s most successful clubs are in Division One, while others don’t just exist anymore. A few are with very bad balance sheets, deficit budget and they cannot pay players and are always running away from court bailiffs.
The clubs mentioned have produced some of Zambia’s finest talent. Nchanga Rangers were the first club in Zambia to have players in the Germany Bundesliga.
The club is in Division One with dilapidated infrastructure. At one time it had more players in the national team than any other club in the country.
What went wrong with these clubs and many others?
A lot of people would say its sponsorship because the company bankrolling the clubs just went under, namely Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM).
We don’t agree, this is just 10 percent of the problem. The 90 percent is in the club ownership in Zambia.
The ownership of football clubs in the country is cardinal. Good performance of the clubs contributes to high standard of league completion, a high performing national team and a very good revenue for the teams.
At the moment, the ownership of football clubs is by companies, the state, army, police, some other state institutions and very few privately owned.
Premier league club ownership or sponsor of Nkana, Forest Rangers, NAPSA Stars, Green Eagles, Zesco, Lusaka Dynamos, Power Dynamos, Kabwe United, Red Arrows, Zanaco, Green Buffaloes FC, Lumwana Radiants, Buildcon, Nkwazi, Kansanshi, Nakambala Leopards, Mufulira Wanderers, and Kabwe Youth, can be categorised as follows;
Ten clubs are owned by companies, one by the pension scheme, four are run by security wings, three are run by individuals namely Lusaka Dynamos, Buildcon and Kabwe Youth Academy.
Dissecting the performance of the 10 clubs run by private companies i.e. bank, utilities and copper mines. The league champion and runners up every season is always coming from the big 10 namely, Zanaco, Nkana, Power, Warriors, Forest, Zesco, Mufulira Wanderers, Kansanshi Dynamos and Lumwana Radiants.
Nevertheless, in terms of international club competitions, development of players for overseas market, the big 10 clubs have failed big time. The furthest is the semifinal stage at continental level - African Club Champions League and Confederations Cup.
In the history of football in Zambia, there has never been any privately-owned club who won the league championship. The clubs owned and run by the private companies and some parastatals have fairly good investment from their sponsors or owners.
The last time a Zambian club won the Africa Cup of Cup Winners Cup, the forerunner of African Club Confederation Cup was in 1991.
The African Cup of Cup Winners was a tournament played on home and away basis on knock-out format. Confederation of African Football (CAF) changed the format for African club competitions.
The African clubs competitions were commercialised. That is to say if clubs qualify to the group stage they are sponsored by CAF, paid TV rights which created a platform for marketing African players overseas.
With this arrangement the African club football became so competitive such that some African countries changed the format of ownership of clubs from corporate sponsors to private , families and foreign investment.
This improved efficiency, it cut out red tape, the chain of command is very short. The owner of the club set targets, failure would mean going separate ways.
If you look at most, if not all of high flying clubs in Africa you notice that it is either an individual, fans, elected board members by the fan or family-owned.
We have always asked what has a football club got to do with a mining company, a bank, the army, the police, utility company? This arrangement might have worked 50 years ago when football was not a business. Things have changed.
Let face it! Nike, Puma, Adidas and many other sports companies don’t own football clubs and yet they make a lot of money from their investment in football clubs.
In Zambia, the big 10 teams budgets are classified as corporate social responsibility. Therefore, performance is not a factor BUT participation in the league.
Cairo-based Al Ahly is the most successful club in the world with 120 trophies. The club which is one of the most dominant clubs in Africa was established 112 years ago. Since then they have dominated the Egyptian Premier League and that has spread to the CAF Confederations Cup and various tournaments in the Arab world.
Al Ahly has won the Egyptian Premier League 41 times, the Egyptian Cup 36 times, Egyptian Super Cup 11 times, Sultan Hussein Cup seven times and Egyptian Confederation Cup once.
In continental tournaments, they have won the CAF Champions League eight times, CAF Cup Winners’ Cup four times, CAF Confederation Cup once and CAF Super Cup four times. Aside from this, Al Alhy has won several tournaments worldwide.
The Al Alhy board is elected.
The Pyramids FC: This club was in Zambia recently. Turki Al Sheikh bought Egyptian Premier League team Al Assiouty, rebranded it as Pyramids FC, and splurged on high-profile local and foreign recruits. The upstart team tasted immediate success and remained unbeaten for the league’s first two months. This is as a result of private investor in Football NOT companies.
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) our next door neighbour, we know the success of TP Mazembe where individual ownership has transformed the club.
The Premier Soccer League in South Africa is one of the richest football leagues in Africa. John Comitis, Kaizer Motaung, Irvin Khoza, Patrice Motsepe and Johann Rupert are some of the South African business moguls running their own football clubs.
If you check the performance of the clubs they own, they are the best!
In Zambia we must shift from private company, parastatal, army, police, ZNS and others to private, sole enterprisers and foreign investment in Zambian football.
Some of the clubs must be listed on the Lusaka Stock Exchange with a huge fan ownership.
Of the 18 teams in the Zambian premier league over 12 must be in the hands of individuals and listed on Lusaka Stock Exchange, or fans must have direct shares.
To transform Zambian football the way forward is to have more teams like Buildcon and Lusaka Dynamos. Otherwise Zambia will continue to be underdogs in Africa and losing very good teams when the sponsor or company goes under.
Zambian big businessmen and women please take interest and invest in football clubs ownership.
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