MURAMIRA François Régis
19th July 2011
Rwandese journalist Press card number: 405/2011 Tel: +250788434649 or +250722667773
Email: munest2002@yahoo.fr
Subject: Demand of reforms In Rwandese football To the president of the republic of Rwanda.
Excellency,
It is my pleasure to address to you the problems Rwandese football has always been facing and how we can overcome them to build a bright future in Rwandese sports in general.
In fact sir, due to irresponsibility and incompetence of many leaders assigned to Rwandese sports (football in particular), we have fallen in various crises in this section of life and if nothing happens I am afraid of the atrocious to come.
Excellency, Rwandese football fans are aware of your immeasurable support to our sports, but they are also still hoping only your direct effort will solve many of those problems.
Amongst these serious problems affecting Rwandese sports are:
1. Irresponsible leaders in the domain of sports: In fact sir, many of those people delegated to lead our sports are irresponsible and have transformed their duties into their own interest. Some of them can give service if only they can get percentage commission from the people they are supposed to serve (examples are available on request).
2. Incompetence: Due to weak control on sports domain, many people have found themselves attributed some sensitive positions over their capacity.
And these people get these jobs not on merit (for example there is no competition to become assistant coach of national team, secretary general at FERWAFA, MIJESPOC technical director and so on), but due to some traffics like family tree, financial profit etc.
3. Financial difficulties for Rwandese football clubs and lack of strict control on governmental funds to football (reference to FERWAFA Internal audit report 2010).
4. No segregation of duties: In an institution like FERWAFA it is a shame to see that nothing can go on without the approval of the general secretary.
5. This lack of segregation of duties may lead to conflict of interest, errors or omission (example under 23: camp without a game, omission of Rwanda national anthem before the game vs. Zambia).
6. Lack of update laws governing sports in Rwanda: The laws controlling sports in Rwanda is too old (Feb 1987) comparing to current situation. (Example in its 8th paragraph states that people have to practice sports without any profit: this is very false as sport is amongst the very indefectible business of this world).
7. Lack of respect for our former national players.
8. Belief in nonexistent mystical force (example: case of recent game of Amavubi game vs Burundi): this lead to drop of hard work.
9. Favoritism: In Rwandese football we may have two identical cases solved differently. (Mukura-Musanze, Etincelles-APRFC)
10. Black list: Some people/organizations are obstructed to some merit due to the fact they have different understanding from these incompetent leaders stated above. (Evidences are available on request).
11. Injustice: In our football there are some types of injustice like: giving nationality to people without following the steps (Kauma Charles), cases of Rurangirwa Louis and Ndanguza Theonas etc…
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Fire all careless leaders to be found in Rwandese sports and replace them with people of willingness for hard work and vigilant spirit.
2. Set up a culture and system of competition in order to get people with ability in their work within sports departments. This means to put in any position a person after competition from many more, and eradicate any kind of assigning post to people based on some profits or family relationship. This will go together by putting in place a post of
DIRECTEUR TECHNIQUE NATIONAL
1. Fund on regular basis and equally all top division football clubs, football academies and Federation sports scolaire.
This is experienced and has been found to be flourishing everywhere in the world.
You may ask where to find these financial means. But we can put in place a systematic case where people/companies/organizations, willing to help Rwandese sports, will put money depending on their capability and on regular note. This can operate when I refer to 1$ campaign.
Another source of funds is to deduct cash (as taxes) on players and other employees of sports area.
It is not understandable how a teacher who gains less than 40 000 Rwandan francs is taxed on his salary and a player getting 1 000 000/month is not taxed.
And at the end motivate all the clubs and federations to be sensitive on marketing strategy to survive for long time once the government stops of funding clubs in the years to come.
This point holds the key to amplify the level of sports competition in Rwanda and to motivate people to come back to the pitch.
2. Segregation of duties to avoid conflict of interest, errors or omission in sports running.
3. Update laws governing sports in Rwanda. In fact the current law highly structured on 18th February 1987 is no longer relevant to current level of our sports.
This will go together with ordering all the federations and clubs to obtain legal status (this has long been a barrier for sponsors to associate with sports in Rwanda).
4. The count: this refers to the process of counting all the former national players.
5. To listen and give respect to them as they have much to deliver via their advices and likeness they wear.
This will motivate young players to perform at or up the standards set by their predecessors.
Many of those former players used to play for national pride without much income; they need assistance and wherever possible have to be given some occupations as they can’t even afford regularly the cost of football match.
Their presence in the stadium will be highly grateful for football fans.
6. Eradicate any form of nonexistent mystical force that leads to drop of hard work
7. Exterminate favoritism: FERWAFA, CNOR and MIJESPOC have to eliminate any type of favoritism in Rwandese football/sports. This will be done by executing laws as they are. All the clubs have to be threatened equally and according to written laws.
The change of Rwanda national team nickname: AMAVUBI. In all countries football is the way of defending national identity.
The choice of a nickname is according to country area of expertise. That is why Ivory Coast is known as Elephants, Tanzania as Kilimanjaro stars, and Brazil as Samba boys and Jamaica as Reggae boys and so on.
And I expect the same for our national football team and we have a lot of country specialties like Kivu Lake, our volcanic gorillas, our 1000 hills and the likes.
Amavubi is not a Rwandese specialty and our national team has never managed to record permanent results under that nickname. A change will look as refreshment.
8. To facilitate people with ability in their sports related work (coaches, journalists, federations staff etc ) go to study abroad to get specialized in sports management, coaching, reporting, marketing and so forth.
FERWAFA has to make planning and target objectives in time and space for Rwandese football.
9. MINISPOC in collaboration with National Olympic committee has to organize a retreat at least once in two years where different responsible people from federations and clubs will be sitting down to dig up and find out all the barriers for the development of our sports and how we can overcome them.
10. Destroy the black list installed by under performer leaders: People have to know that in sports we can have different opinions as sport in its basic is a matter of diverting opinions, leading to unified results.
11. Abolish injustice in our football (for example giving nationality to foreign players should follow the steps required except if it is on national profit).
12. Put in place a strict procedure to control government funds transferred to FERWAFA.
According to Internal Audit Report of FERWAFA, concluded in June 2010 covering the period from 2007 up to 2009, there are a lot of weaknesses in the use of these funds.
These faults include, but not limited to: lack of memorandum of understanding between MINISPOC and FERWAFA, weak control on budget expenditure that lead to millions of deficit, not supported expenditure, insufficiently supported transactions, some missing amount of money (see annex 2 where 0 Frw is defined as income from the game between Rwanda-Cameroun, that is false).
In fact Excellency it is absurd why people responsible for this mischief were not conducted to court.
13. To develop our football by adopting the youth development policy. This have to be periodical and on regular basis. This is the only way sure to get to everlasting results.
This is not difficult but it takes time and money. So, we have to be patient. The results of our national team under 17 can testify on this testament.
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