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Lloyd Hove

Ngqabutho Moyo Sports Reporter
FORGOTTEN former Dynamos chairman Lloyd Hove has taken a swipe at the way football is being administered in the country. Speaking in an interview at a Bulawayo hotel, Hove who was the DeMbare boss in 1998 when the club reached the 1998 final of the African Champions League in a young and dynamic executive which also had Leslie Gwindi as secretary believes that clubs in Zimbabwe are treating football differently.

“Football is unfortunately treated differently to how it is supposed to be. Football is a business and as long as it is not treated along business principles, we will never succeed,” said Hove.

He said planning at boardroom level was important as success should not be an accident but a carefully planned process. Implementation was on the field and boardroom too.
Hove said it was saddening to see how football was being run.

He decried lack of foresight and a deliberate way to lay the foundation of the future of players outside the game.
“It is saddening that Zimbabwean football is the way it is because we lack the capacity to plan ahead,” he said.

Hove also criticised the manner in which some appointments in the game were made, which smack of politics of patronage.
“Some of the guys that are appointed do not have the capacity to develop and build the Zimbabwean football brand,” he said.
Hove identified indiscipline as one major challenge that is negatively impacting on the game.

“There is a major problem of indiscipline in our local football. In our time we instilled discipline, we were prepared to go along with disciplined mediocre players than star players who were undisciplined. We gave those guys who were mediocre the opportunity to play. Our success was in choosing players who were disciplined and who wanted to win,” said Hove.

His class of 1998 came no where near great sides of the 1970s and 1980s who illuminated the football scene and are still talked about even decades after they hung their boots but did well by reaching the final of the continental club race.

Hove noted with disappointment that Dynamos were still struggling financially.
He had a vision to privatise Dynamos turning card holders’ membership to shareholding.

The idea failed at the club as it did at Zimbabwe Saints.