Mushekwi is a proper role model
IMAGINE if all our footballers were as exemplary as Nyasha Mushekwi?
For decades we have read and heard about some football stars, both at home and in foreign countries, who fell from grace and ended up being a shame to the game and society.
We have so many of them we will need more than hundred editions of this newspaper to get the space to fill their names.
George Best, for example, was rated the best footballer of his generation and now has a statue outside Old Trafford as a lasting symbol of Manchester United’s tribute to his services.
But, we all know that George Best was as good on the football pitch as he was bad off it and ended up being consumed by drugs and alcohol.
We have many cases of our football stars who ended up with nothing to show for all the time they spent entertaining us on the football fields.
They failed to secure their future by investing for the rainy day when they would no longer be receiving income from their clubs.
Even though they knew that this day would come, they didn’t plan for it because they were distracted by one thing or another.
Nyasha Mushekwi looks different. His dedication to his game has seen him keep playing at a very high level well into his thirties and he is now attracting interest from clubs across the world after his success in the Chinese Super League.
He was the second best goalscorer in the CSL in the just-ended season because he puts a value to his training and dedication to his craft.
We are also told that he has done well in terms of his investments in real estate and other fields and his future has been secured through all these wise decisions.
We are told that Mushekwi can decide to retire from football today and he will not struggle to take care of himself and his family.
He is the only Zimbabwean footballer who had the presence of mind to thank the local club which helped him, when he was beginning his professional career, by investing in a luxury team bus for CAPS United.
It cost him something close to US$200 000 but we all agree that it was a worthwhile investment.
At the weekend, Mushekwi sealed his union with his Swedish wife Arsema Ghebrehiwot at a three-day lavish wedding ceremony in Cape Town, South Africa.
As he gets closer to the end of his career, Mushekwi knows that the time is coming when he will need to settle down.
That is why he has chosen someone who will be his soulmate and, almost four years after introducing her to the world as his fiancé, Mushekwi has gone a step further and married his sweetheart.
This is a beautiful story and, in a game where there is so much negativity when it comes to its stars, we salute Mushekwi for leading the way with all these positive stories.