By Solomon Manganyi
The Zimbabwean football industry has been reeling in financial distress as clubs struggle to attract corporate suitors.
A lot has to be understood on the issues surrounding financial sponsorships in football.
Our football ecosystem has many aspects to address, that range from governance issues, right personnel hiring and club ownership structures.
Several times we have noticed that those in football administration have failed to balance professionalism as an administrator and personal business as an individual.
Nepotism has been an Achilles heel for many, as they have thrown away the culture of treating football as a business but taking it as a family thing, leading to questionable hiring in a bid to maintain grip on something.
Corporates invest in football anticipating a return on their investment -reason there is a sponsorship activation process that deals with the duties of the entity sponsoring and the football club being sponsored.
This process hasn’t been applied in Zimbabwe as most of the funding has been donations being mistaken as sponsorships.
A sponsorship in football has to generate revenue for both parties hence the need for the two parties to satisfy one of the contract elements which is the meeting of the minds, so that every party enters the contract knowing what’s expected of them.
There are three main sources of revenues in the football industry which are; the match day revenue (ticketing and hospitality), the broadcasting revenue (TV rights) and the commercial revenue (sponsorship and merchandise).
The ticketing system in Zimbabwe hasn’t been the best, as it creates frustration to both the fans (long queues before entering the stadiums) and the clubs (financial pilferage through undesignated gates).
An effective ticketing system would be beneficial to generate substantial revenue for the clubs where the ticketing has to be efficient and linked to the club and league.
There is need for transparency and accountability, where the number of tickets sold and corresponding revenues are known by everyone before matches kick off.
On the broadcasting side, we have noticed that clubs have their matches shown live on television but they get nothing for it, meaning that’s loss of revenue which needs close attention for leagues and clubs to generate a win-win situation.
On the issue of kit provider, it is difficult to understand whether all clubs are getting any revenue from the kit sponsorship or it’s just buying.
Similarly, if there are any replicas available, they are not enough to meet the demand, hence the questions on whether or not the kit provision generates any revenue for clubs still remain unanswered.
The front shirt sponsor normally comes with a huge payout for many clubs, which is in turn used for investment in other areas but locally, those front shirt sponsors tend to cover the salary expense which leave the clubs not financially sustainable as they will be operating on a hand to mouth basis.
Does club ownership structure have a bearing on its ability to attract sponsors or generate revenue? The answer is, yes, it has a huge bearing which most administrators and owners ignore.
In the United Kingdom, all football club directors go through a directors’ test which is an integrity test to check on suitability to own or lead a club but, in our case, we have lots of individuals with questionable backgrounds occupying influential positions in football and then we ask ourselves why the corporate world is shunning our football.
The national association, i.e ZIFA, and the Premier Soccer League have a lot to do in that regard as most football administrators in the country are not hired based on their football business acumen but because they are close friends or in the close circles of the appointing authority.
Bulawayo giants Highlanders for instance, should follow the business model of clubs like Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona as well as Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich, who are traditional clubs (member owned clubs/community clubs) like their set up at Emagumeni.
The Bundesliga uses the 50+1 rule where they maintain the clubs being run by members at the same time not closing the door to external investors.
Bayern Munich had a total of 490,000 members which was 75% of their ownership structure with other external investors like Adidas (8.33%), Audi (8.33%) and Allianz (8.33%) owning the other 25%.
Highlanders had an estimated 4,500 members in 2024 if each member was to contribute US$500 per year to gain voting rights as they don’t come for free, this would mean total revenue of US$2.25m per season just from members.
Consequently, with match day revenues, sponsorship and broadcasting revenues the club won’t be struggling to attract good players, as has always been the case in recent years.
The problem we have is that most people want to be members who don’t contribute anything to the club but still want to make decisions concerning the same club.
Those same members also expect to be having privileges like entering the stadium for free, therefore sending the club into more financial trouble in the process.
Bosso are sitting on a gold mine which they are failing to extract gold from but are just content with holding onto the mine.
The city may benefit from it in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contribution by the club as a result of direct expenditure.
The club’s background incorporates its role as Bulawayo’s ambassador and its local culture hence it has great impact in the city, which requiaction from everyone involved with the Bosso.
Dynamos on the other hand have been reduced to beggars because everything about them, from being a so-called community team to a private one owned by one Benard Marriott Lusengo, took a wrong path.
If indeed they had members as it is claimed, then the change from being a traditional to a private owned club should have followed a right process which ZIFA and PSL would have involved.
Our football hasn’t been run with such professionalism unfortunately.
Marriott claims to own 51% of the club shareholding but has the PSL or ZIFA ever checked what business he is into to show for his shareholding and how he intends to invest in the club.
The identity of the other shareholders owning the remaining 49% are shrouded in secrecy, which is another issue the football authorities in the country have ignored, thereby putting our football in a situation where connections work more than professionalism.