Kitwe Derby Can Be Used As Spring Board To Commercialize FAZ Premier League
The famous Kitwe Derby that is heavily contested in a two leg between the two Kitwe football giants Nkana Football Club and Power Dynamos Football Club has always lived up to its expectations. The two teams have passionate and die hard fans that characterize their rivalry on who gets the bragging rights.
The two leg games have seen both Nkana's Wusakile Stadium and Power Dynamos Arthur Davis stadiums filled to capacity with tickets running out hours before kick off time. Computickets has also helped to keep track of funds raised ands well as the numbers sold out.
For the 2017 legs, the two teams have squared off and shared the spoils with Power Dynamos winning the first leg away to Nkana via a 2-1 score line and Nkana winning the return leg last week via a 1-0 score line.
Football administrators at the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) who are charged with the responsibility to run the game in Zambia have some best practice sharing to transfer accross the Zambian league. The game of football needs to be commercialized for it to develop and remove the over dependence on government coffers for the national team.
The sponsors for the league teams will also get value for their funds invested for marketing, corporate social responsibility as well as corporate communications if the league games are locally followed and if stadiums are filled to capacity.
Gate takings, TV rights, site marketing and sponsorship deals will then flow to the local league teams which will lead to additional revenue generation. This will flow to the players and make the clubs be able to be self sustained with ability to pursue growth and acquire and retain the top players making the games even more exciting and exhilarating to watch for the fans.
FAZ needs to start with the basics, start reporting match attendance numbers and track if these numbers are increasing or decreasing. If you can measure something, you can control it. Once measured and reported, the Association can then work with and technically support clubs that have limitations in terms of attracting match attendance numbers and help to share best practice with other top clubs in Zambia.
The Association can also lobby on behalf of the teams to work with government to consider future stadia development via Public Private Partnerships (PPP). So that stadiums are built at venues with the highest local supporters base. This will ensure full economic use of built stadiums that can be used by the local club and used for international games by the national team when dates come up.
For instance, expansion of Nkana Stadium and Arthur Davis stadiums in Kitwe in collaboration with the Ministry of sports via Private Public Partnerships - PPP would lead to Zambia easily having the four required stadiums for hosting consideration of African Football (CAF) which at the same time are used by these two most followed team on every other week, ensuring economic and productive use of such infrastructure.