The Zambian scenario…..

it’s “pretty amazing” that ZANACO won last season’s super League with only one consistent foreign based player in Attram Kwame regularly in their starting line up. This success brings questions if really the influx of foreign based players that are flooding the Zambian league are helping the situation or making things worse.

The Zambia Super league is becoming one of Africa’s most watched league and perhaps the reason why we have the high number of players from other countries wanting to join the league.

The influx of foreign players has come as the price of TV rights for the super League games on supersport and the haste for success is becoming evident among clubs. This has changed the reasoning behind the buying of foreign players by the clubs, from the original desire to get better players ‘cheaper’ to clubs now having the money to buy the best players in Africa.

While some see this as a negative for Zambian football, I see it as a positive, stating that playing alongside classy footballers makes local players, by having to constantly fight for a place in the team. This debate often will ignore the number of foreign players brought to Zambian clubs, both as individuals and as members of a team. These include individual economic benefits such as increased advertising and exposure, as well as benefits to the team which include bringing wider knowledge and skills that Zambian players may not have necessarily had and can pickup. The best example is that if Zesco in the CAF Champions league of 2016. Jesse Were, Odiambo, Iddriss and oluwafeni made that team stand out and am sure it also helped local players compete to the highest level.

Many fans would agree that we shall have by far too many foreign players in the super League this season but the same fans see the foreign players at their particular club as an asset, often adopting them as their own. This is good for Zambian football. Am struggling to remember which club have not been rumoured getting foreign players, of course with the exception of Green Buffaloes, Red Arrows and Green Eagles who by policy do not get foreign players. But Nkwazi have been rumoured following foreign based players.

So by and large this is being seeing as a progressive move.
The blaming of the number of foreign players for the decline of Zambian football at national squad, is like the blaming of immigrants for the decline of job opportunities or wages , detracting from the real issue.

In 2013 for instance we had a handful of foreign players in Zambian football when Nkana won the league and yet Zambian failed lamentably at the 2013 AFCON same with the 2015 edition. This in itself blunts the argument made by most people that the foreign players are the reason of failure for the poor performance of the national team.

This is actually a good opportunity for the nation to learn from this experience . like every football fan, welcome a renewed effort to foster Zambian football talent and maintain Zambia’s status as one of the greatest teams in Africa. However I believe to do this we need to emulate other country’s successes with their youth teams, with their academies, and with their approaches to coaching. Zambia’s success in future competitions will depend on a balanced and diverse approach much as a successful economy depends on the diverse skills of our own people alongside those brought in from around the world. In football as in our own lives foreigners bring much more to our country then they take away.

Of course though if clubs are going to bring in foreign based players they should make sure they bring in the quality of players we don’t have in the country otherwise it won’t be reasonable to bring the quality that can easily be replaced by our own Zambian players.

Local players the challenge is now yours to also show your worthy and compete for those positions. This is good for Zambian football!!