Editor, RE: “Heres how Rwandan football fortunes can be turned around” (The New Times, August 29). This is a clearly very well thought out analysis for a possible way forward. but I think that while shortage of space (not to mention other resources) poses a problem for the building of sports infrastructure of appropriately modern standards at the level of akagari, it isnt one some creative thinking cant overcome (and if there is anything Rwandans are generally good at, it is improvisation in the face of necessity). What we cannot continue to do is to fixate on immediate solutions when what is really needed are long-term system fixes. Short-term immediate, band-aid type fixes (such as replacement of a coach, opting for a local or foreign manager as considered necessary in given circumstances) are fine when band-aid solutions are used to put out the fires, but as we have seen these fixes rarely last. More time must be spent and a systems analysis approach applied in identifying the real underlying causes of our endemic failure before we can devise the right solutions. The important thing is to think outside the box (sorry for the cliché), and to stop trying to use band-aid to cure a deep-seated wound. Meantime (and I know how unpopular this will be with the perpetually disappointed but still football-crazy Rwandan fans) let us call timeout from international competition until we have gone some way towards dealing with the underlying causes of the consistent under-performance of our sports. We do not have to shift the savings to other uses outside sports, but rather towards its development instead of international competition. Mwene Kalinda
