TFF not capable of handling match fixing

There were also discrepancies in the manner in which punishments were handed out, for instance in the case of Geita Gold Mine FC the TFF punished its assistant coach, while the coach remained unscathed. Chances that big plans of that sort did not involve the responsible person, in the sense of the coach, and merely his assistant are negligible.

The problem with the whole operation is that it was an inside job, a regulatory process within the TFF itself, in which case it ought to have operated with more friendly penalties in case one is deemed to have committed an offence.

When a professional body handles its own members, it can’t operate as a court of law but as a reformative instance, disappointed by a member’s behavior but not moving in the direction of denying that association, comradeship, or expectation of future loyalty. Only in extreme terms is a professional sanction followed by shifting the matter to a civilian court, which is harsher.

In other words TFF cannot have surveillance powers over the way the premier league and accessory competitions are handled, and then act with as much ferocity as would be for a criminal charge in court.

If a soccer side loses points in a premier league encounter, or three consecutive matches on account of match fixing, that is already a harsh penalty from a professional point of view.

Sentences or penalties like prohibition to participate in soccer activities for ten years look like they were delivered on the basis of the Criminal Procedure Code, but the tribunal which handed those sentences isn’t qualified for that,.

There was an effort on the part of the TFF tribunal (or whatever its proper title would be) to exercise the most harsh retribution for what took place, on the basis of feigned anger and dramatic resoluteness that this should never happen again.

All that flies in the face of facts that there are differential capacities in the premier league, and that despite sponsorships that have brought dignity to other premier league clubs apart from two or three city giants, there is still extensive inequality and poor treatment of players even among leading clubs. In that context commerce is frequently exercised, at some professional risk.

Instead of feigned anger and genocidal attitude to soccer careers once anyone has been involved in match fixing, it is more appropriate for TFF or its tribunal members to be more realistic.

All of them belong to soccer clubs in spirit, and on the whole they are either pro-Simba SC or pro-Young Africans SC even when they have other clubs to which they are affiliated.

The cardinal rule about these affiliations is that everything must be done to ensure that the club one supports (among the city rivals) comes on top; all other considerations are secondary, in which case such gestures, while negative, are well taken.

In that context when such punishments are issued one wonders whom the TFF is serving, for the broad public in which it operates is a Yanga and Simba public without reminder or residue, and any of those wishes to obtain cooperation from some premier league side which enables the maths to favor his side.

It is like electoral cash peddling so as to increase votes, say of the ruling party, where it would be funny if an electoral commission which favors the ruling party would punish cash peddlers with ten years of exclusion from politics.

The question is – on whose behalf are they issuing those punishments? Who is it that was massively angered by what happened?
Even if we agree that match fixing is negative as it falsifies what happened on the ground, is it not more appropriate to address the causes, not just anger?

One reason for match fixing is that those who wish to purchase the behavior of a player, a match official or club official know plainly where their problems are, and work on those sores.

There is for instance a simmering conflict at Simba SC where players aren’t being regularly paid, and cash for transfer of great players like Emmanuel Okwi and Mbwana Samatta that reaches the one billion shillings mark has for all intents and purposes being received by club officials and they remained mum.

Can’t a Young Africans SC official contact this or that player say at Coastal Union to play to capacity for a reward later, and this or that fellow in Simba SC to be a bit lackadaisical? It fixes the results, and errant officials are fixed as well.