It was always on the brink of dawn of a Saturday morning when I'd wake up, throw on my Arsenal jersey and a pair of shorts, jump into my soccer boots and then tiptoe my way through the corridor that split my parents’ bedroom from mine, and once I made it outside without waking them, I'd dash off like a crazy person headed to the one and only destination; Tapis, a popular public soccer pitch located in Remera.
In my panting arrival I'd stop and stare in a state of familiar amazement, through the cloud of dust hovering over the pitch, at a flock of individuals chasing after and skillfully maneuvering the ball, deploying an air of enthusiasm and tensity for the game. I remember this moment always culminating my desire to play, even though watching from the side was always a satisfying experience itself.
The scenario I just painted above is just a piece from a larger mosaic of the Rwandan soccer image. You'd testify to this truth if you've tripped round Kigali and noticed an active match within every 20 kilometers at least. Usually, a nation’s embodiment of such passion and commitment for a sport should be intrinsically partnered with a well performing league and national team, but it’s sad to say that the contrary is true when it comes to Rwanda. This unfortunate fact can be rightfully blamed on the economic and financial weaknesses of this nation as the main impediment amongst other factors at least.
Starting with our national team (Amavubi), it’s embarrassing to hold a qualification to the African cup of nations 10 years ago as our proudest achievement, if that even counts as an achievement. In the sports dimension achievements are quantified by trophies, which our trophy cabinet seems to have forgone in the favor of dust. Let’s not talk about the world cup because even a mere qualification doesn’t exist anywhere in our realistic prospects. Our regional performance in the CECAFA cup isn’t noteworthy either, winning only one title (13 years ago) and only 5 runner up arrivals since the annual tournament’s commencement in 1973 isn’t really notable.
Turning to our local league for consolation won’t be of much help. The Primus league still lags behind in the African league rankings, however, our regional performance in the Kagame Interclub cup tournament is reasonably better than the national team’s, standing with 5 titles won by local clubs; Rayons Sports (1998), APR (2004, 2007) and ATRACO (2009). The credit isn't all ours though, this better performance is fueled by the persistent presence of international players in the league. APR, for instance, presently has 8 internationals hailing from the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, DRC, Malawi and Haiti.
With all this laid down, one would ask himself where it all goes wrong for Rwandan soccer, well, it all begins with the issue of economic weakness as mentioned earlier. In a developing country like Rwanda, the concept of opportunity cost is very prevalent; the Rwandan government seems to be challenged by development tasks which are more urgent than sports development funding, as a result more resources and investment will be availed to these pressing tasks at the loss of the sports sector development. These priority tasks include infrastructural, health care and educational development.
Lack of substantial resource allocation in Rwandan sports development is, first of all, suffered in terms of a deficiency in infrastructure to facilitate the training of young talent in this career scope, I mean there is only one legitimate football academy in the entire nation. Secondly, lack of investment in this area will subsequently discourage the career pursuits in the sport by young people; dreams of being a professional football player in our community are left for the 7 year olds nowadays, which is a major threat to the sustainability of the sport. Thirdly, FERWAFA, the governing body of football in Rwanda, has faced an unhealthy consistent reshuffling of leaders who haven’t been doing a great job attracting investors who are needed to inject funds in the sport, alongside failure to make radical reforms in our downing league. With all these obstacles at hand, I’m left wondering what the future holds for Rwandan football, when will it leave the streets of Kigali and face the international spotlight? Will I ever see that unique Tapis soccer on the stage of the world cup?
By Denis Karenzi( Bridge2Rwanda scholar)
Kin
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