Flames and series of seemings
This column is offering a reward to anyone who can help me make sense out of a cryptic puzzle that is the Flames and its coaches. Bear with me for, in the first place, assuming that the Flames and its coaches exist.
Put safely, there is a threat to hire caretaker coaches namely Eddington Ng’onamo, Ernest Mtawali and Patrick Mabedi. They are to embark on a Flames’ revival project. Otherwise, there is nothing in black and white confirming their appointments.
The presumed interim coaches are merely filling a script, which opened with the removal of Kinnah Phiri, Young Chimodzi and Jack Chamangwana.
FAM created an impression that the previous coaches were fired, only for government to set matters straight, in a press statement laced with officialise and diplomacy, that they were recalled and redeployed.
With such wording, government had evaded a tackle from lurking wrath of Employment Act.
Lesson is: You don’t hire when you cannot pay. Any attempt to employ on someone’s purse results in either the employee operating like there is no boss or reporting to wrong people, thereby creating what I would call a series of seemings.
Imagine Kinnah’s firing (sorry redeployment) took place at Chiwembe Technical Centre. Word setting the record straight came from Capital Hill. The hearing out of Kinnah was held at the Sports Council’s offices.
The circus continues with FAM, in its penalty box, again playing a square pass.The pass is aimed at government, but it does not seem interested.
On paper, government has always claimed that it never interferes in FAM’s decisions, but merely supports their recommendations.
But where FAM does not seem to know what constitutes a coach’s dismissal, let alone how to dribble about it, then something is awfully offside.
The problem is that statements that come from Capital Hill and Chiwembe are never straight. They are deliberately curled to confuse the other party.
Once again apologies for assuming that the Flames exist. If they did, Treasury would have simply referred to the team’s calendar of events against its approved budget and unzip the purse for the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.
Again, I am assuming that FAM sent government a calendar of events. I am guilty of assumptions; hence need the help of a sharper discerning mind.
