ON SULOM ELECTIONS, ACHIEVEMENTS, MANIFESTOS & CAPABILITIES

Allow me to make a few comments regarding the SULOM elections. First, the candidates:

1. Mr Tiya Somba
   Mr Somba has presented a manifesto which is actually a list of achievements rather than future plans. I guess this makes sense since he is already in office.
   The achievements are remarkable. The thing I see here is that these achievements are being highlighted very late and prior to elections. This will make people feel that these are not achievements but campaign talk. Otherwise, taken on their own and considering the state of the Malawi economy, these achievements taken on their own, are quite remarkable. He has tried to engage the corporate world as evidenced by deals like Man of The Match, Kwezy Buses, etc, and the renegotiation of the TNM sponsorship. What has been particularly remarkable for me was the increase of Winners prize money to K40m despite the actual league sponsorship not increasing by much at all.
   The worrying thing is that it seems these thongs are being accomplished single-handedly by the president and there is very little we hear from the other office bearers. I will dwell more on this in my subsequent posts.

Where I feel Mr Somba could have done more or needs to do more if re-elected is:

• to make more noise. Because lack of noise creates the impression that nothing is happening. This can be achieved by monthly media and club briefings
• to revamp the secretariat. A vibrant, capable and professional secretariat will bring success to SULOM. Football is big business and we cant move forward with the caliber of staff at our secretariat. We need to add professionals there.
• take advantage of the cordial working relationship with FAM to engage FAM and Govt to part with more money for the Super League. The Super League is the bedrock of the Flames. FAM and Govt need to invest more in the Super League and develop football more at that level than at National team level. Football can not be developed at national team level. The national team is supposed to be a product of the development that has taken place at the lower levels. Also devise a workable plan and playing format for the Super League Youth teams instead of playing them in a league half full of recycled former super league players.

Food for thought. Otherwise not bad.

2. Mr Fleetwood Hauya
   Mr Hauya is charismatic and understands football politics. He knows how to play his cards and has cultivated the media onto his side so you will rarely hear a negative thing about him.
   Three things worry me though:

• Mr Hauya has made his football name at Nyasa Big Bullets whose mother company has injected obscene amounts of money into the team. So he has thrived in an environment that has already got money. This is money from the owners, not like he went out and secured the money while already in office at Nyasa. SULOM does not have money. How is he going to fare in such an environment?
• He has been good at delegating work. So most of the achievements attributed to him at Nyasa have actually been achieved by the secretariat staff like the ceo, etc and not really himself per se. Credit to him for empowering them. But my fear is SULOM do not have the same calibre of staff at its secretariat and does not have the resources to employ such staff. So it will take a while before the secretariat can be capacitated enough to capably execute delegated work. In the meantime is he capable of doing some of the work himself ?
• His manifesto is too vague, ambiguous and has no meat. For example “taking football back to the clubs”, what does that even mean? My fear is the manifesto is based more on anti-TiyaSomba sentiments than actual realistic needs and achievable objectives or even the methodology he will use to achieve the objectives, like how will he do what he is promising, what is it he will do that others havent tried before? I dont see that in the manifesto. So its not even a manifesto at all but headlines.

Having said this I wish him well and hope my observations are unfounded.

Away from the presidential candidates –
The biggest fear I have got is us, the voters.

Why?

We are focussing more on the presidency but I feel we are paying less or inadequate attention to the other critical positions.

1. The Secretariat/General secretary – this is a key position and is the driver of the SULOM agenda. If and when an Executive and its president are deemed to have failed to fully fulfil their manifesto, it is because the secretariat was not up to the task. The GS is the key position. Surprisingly, every election, clubs blame SULOM for failures and yet the GS position goes unopposed.
2. Committee Members – what do they contribute? There is need to categorize the membership positions. For example
   First Committee member – Marketing. This position would be filled by a marketing oriented person who will head the marketing subcommittee. When campaigning he will produce a marketing manifesto and only contest for that first committee member position only.
   Second Committee member – youth teams,
   Third committee member – Discipline, etc, etc.
   This way you are empowering each member and giving them a yardstick on which their performance will be judged. You are also decentralizing the work.

To be continued…..

By Alternative View