Amavubi is more than Katauti or Karekezi

I know you may not get shocked by what I’m about to reveal because it was more or less expected, but the truth is, Branko Tucak wasn’t the main reason for Amavubi Stars’ failure to qualify for next January’s Nations Cup like the picture has been painted to us believe so. It was far more than that. Actually even beyond the powers of the coach to handle! The Amavubi camp was a divided place. The dressing room was split into camp Katauti and camp Karekezi and in the end none won; instead their stupidity cost the team and the entire nation a golden opportunity to return to the Nations Cup finals. With a sharply divided dressing room what do you expect? Definitely failure. Throughout the final qualifying phase, the environment around the team was surely falling apart instead of pulling in the same direction. When I wrote last Sunday that we did not deserve to qualify, I knew what I was talking about despite not going deep into details although my article, as usual didn’t go down well with some people. But hold on a second; I don’t give a dog’s….. I know the blame games here are so ripe that some people take it to blaming some us in the media for the team’s shortcomings! That’s crap. Until people learn to own up to their mistakes, the status quo will always remain the same. And that’s the least the beautiful game in this country needs. The blame games must stop and so the silly politics in football, particularly the national team. But how is it going to end? It’s hard because it’s the way of life here but there must a will from the powers that be to put a stop it, and there is no better way to achieve it by owning to the mistakes committed. It all start soon after the first game qualifier against Algeria in Kigali which ended in a stalemate and it got worse when Olivier Karekezi lost the captain’s armband to his assistant Hamad Ndikumana ‘Katauti’. I don’t want to fall into the trap of the blame games which I am very much against but I won’t let that prevent me from talking about something which is of national interest and that is the national team and the deadwood that needs to be wiped out once and for all. A source that revealed to me the players’ politics within the Amavubi ranks but wasn’t willing to share with me which player was in whose camp and or who didn’t have any allegiance to any of the two camps but the bottom line is, there was sharp division in the dressing room which culminated in Tucak dropping Katauti and Karekezi for the final game against Zambia. It took some real convincing for him to even include Karekezi on the final 18-man list but he wasn’t in mood to have Katauti near the team as he is said to be the real nuisance in all the rubbish that tore the team apart. For sometime now I have maintained that these so-called senior players have become more of liability to the team than an asset and the sooner they’re left out the better for the development of the young players, who have a lot to contribute and prove. Katauti, Karekezi, Gatete [Jimmy], Saidi Abedi, Bokota are all past their sell-by dates and have nothing more to add to the national team other than being a stumbling block to the development of the young talent. It’s a shame for a 35-year-old player to claim he’s 24! Ball don’t lie and we all saw what Karekezi and Bokota did against Zambia, so the team can surely do without them. Because of Katauti and his camp, which I came to learn includes among others Gatete, Rwanda risked severe punishment after the Algeria game [in Algiers] when he passed orders as team captain that Amavubi refuse to restart after conceding the third goal in a so that “not to concede” more goals! Can you imagine that kind of lunacy? Lucky the match officials let them off the hook by not including the acts in their match report but how often are we going to get away with it? He may have had his best days in national colours as a player and as captain, but I’d like to think time has come for him and all his likes to leave the scene so that the younger players, who are the future of the team get the chance to do what the like of Katauti, Abedi, Gatete, Karekezi did when they were abit younger and still had to the legs to perform at the highest level. As we call for Tucak dismissal, which is only waiting to be confirmed, we shouldn’t forget that not even Sir Alex Ferguson or Marcel Lippi or even Arsene Wenger can achieve anything with a divided dressing room. What about an inquiry into what real happened in what was a disastrous campaign; tax payers’ money shouldn’t be let to go waste like that. And can someone be held responsible if anything went wrong this time? nku78@yahoo.com