Editor,

Reference is made to Junior Sabena Mutabazi’s article, "Why Amavubi’s top job should go to a Rwandan” (The New Times, January 22).

We need to give our countrymen a chance to exercise what they can also do.

Why is it that all the big teams in Africa—Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire—have had foreign managers for as far as history goes back and yet their best achievement was to reach the quarter finals of the World Cup?

By comparison, the current top ten nations who have almost all the World Cup titles amongst themselves have always hired a countryman as their manager. This cannot be just coincidence; can it?

Stanley

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Without blowing things out of proportion, if Vincent de Gaulle Nzamwita (president of the Rwanda FA, known as Ferwafa) and his team think that we so desperately need foreign managers despite the clear and obvious signs that they aren’t the magicians they are presumed to be, shouldn’t he probably also resign and we look for a foreign Ferwafa head?

After all, hasn’t Ferwafa failed more than the local managers who are always overlooked? If we are so much into home-grown solutions in all other spheres of development, why is it so hard to see that we need the same in our football?

We can’t forever seek for external help even in areas where we can hustle on our own and make it in the long run!

Otherwise, we shall be subjected to waves of shame, like in the case when we were found guilty of using non Rwandans in Amavubi. Or be forever targeted by opportunists who use as a springboard to better opportunities.

Now more than ever, Rwandan football needs a dose of agaciro (self-dignity)!

Ivan R. Mugisha