Better we guide them; than make excuses for them
Thuso Palai | Wednesday October 15, 2014 15:02
It is well and good for the players to show their discontent if they are not happy with something. I have always been one to say the welfare of the players is not adequately taken care off in most instances, but that is the old age problem that we all know about. What seems to be happening nowadays is that there are some elements of some ill-discipline creeping in and it is always justified by the same old excuses that their welfare is not adequately taken care off.
For a long time, some Zebras players have played with our emotions and abused our sympathy. Everytime they go off the rails, they know we will make excuses for them and justify their bad behaviour with the usual; ‘they are not well taken care off’, ‘They are paid late’, ‘Their allowances are too little’, ‘the BFA this and that’, and all that other hogwash we always come up with to defend them and shift the blame elsewhere.
Those are the excuses we always make for them, and sometimes justifiably so. I would never advise the players to come to camp or even play if they are abused, owed money from previous camps or their allowances not paid. That is abuse. But it boggles my mind why someone would bring up the issue of maladministration and money issues at the BFA when a player reports to camp in a sorry state.
The national team coach and CEO have confirmed that one player came to camp intoxicated. A few other players confirmed that. Yes; the player will deny that, but why would the coach and other players make up the story. Do they hate him so much? It’s his word against many other people’s word. Mind you, the same player was once cited in a somewhat similar incident some time back and I personally gave him the benefit of the doubt. It is well and good to say the BFA and maybe the coach could have dealt with the situation a bit better than to blurt it out, but who would not be frustrated if one of their important players came to camp before a crucial game in that state.
It is rather sad that we are quick to make excuses for the players and instead shift the blame. I have done that in the past, and I have since realised that the players tend to abuse our sympathy.
Yes; the BFA sometimes lets down the players, but sometimes we tend to blame the BFA for even those things that are out of their control. Instead of dealing and condemning the untoward behaviour of players we attack the BFA just based on what happened in the past. I would rather we advise and help them deal with the pressures of stardom, rather than make excuses for them all the time.
That is the opportune time for the young men to be advised accordingly and helped deal with their super star status. Making excuses for them won’t help them as they know they will get away with murder. If we all walked off when shouted at to pull up our socks at work, I’m pretty sure we would all be sitting at home. Once in a while, in whatever we do, we all get shouted at if we are not performing to our potential.
We need to set up an independent task force to get to the bottom of this latest episode. The BFA/BNSC/Government need to investigate these latest incidents. We need to ascertain what really happened? Who was at fault? What is causing all this? Is it the players? Why are the players doing this? Is it the BFA? Is it the coach? We need to know so we correct things going forward. The witnesses are right down the corridor; it’s the players themselves, the coach and his technical team, the other players and even former national team players.
There is never smoke without fire and Instead of always making excuses for alledged indiscipline, let’s rather help these youngsters and show them what’s right from wrong.