Must we watch the local football league for patriotism sake?

“Charity begins at home.” If we are to improve and bring our local football clubs to excellence, we must fully support them, regardless of how they play, on the pitch or the uniform. Why is it so difficult to support and propel our own teams to greatness? Why do we starve our own Amavubi in favour of the English Premier League? Is shouting Man-U OR Chelsea patriotic at all? It’s of total disappointment that instead of seeking ways to improve home clubs, Rwandans heroically support foreign clubs.YET; foreign teams will remain foreign, no matter how much we support them. On the contrary, ours is really our teams, no matter how bad they are. Excuses like, “it’s boring,” make it crystal-clear that our local teams are deficient in our support. We are plainly, brain-distilled with overseas football clubs, not knowing that the great teams we treasure earned victory through relentless home support. Supporting home clubs will always make a difference. The best clubs in the world have the best support from home. For instance, Italy, Brazil, France and Germany. In Africa, standard examples are of Egypt, Ghana and Nigeria.Is not by surprise that these teams have worn Africa cup of nations; they owe it to their country’s unconditional support. Before you spend fortunes in bars, watching Drogba play, don’t you think that money can impact your home team? Rome wasn’t built in a single day, even the greatest teams at one point solicited funds for improvement. Meanwhile, people spend on purchasing G-Tv Decoders, DZTV Decoders, arsenal jerseys, and key holders, cups, painting their cars with English Premiership players or logos. All in all, its lots of money spent on these teams that will not recognize your support for even a single day. What we invest this amount in our own teams’ welfare? We would make and purchase our own Amavubi Jerseys, key holders; our stadiums would improve with time through what we would call little sacrifices. While, people create their own arsenal jersey on facebook, Arsenal is already famous and needs no publicity, but Rwanda teams need it. Sharing information about our own Amavubi Junior Club that made us proud recently would surely make the team known, world wide. Instead of having Arsenal’s Walcott as your profile picture on facebook, why not try Amavubi’s Jimmy Gatete’s photo, after all he is our own. More disappointing is the crazy fights that occur between rival team supporters. It’s been common in, Uganda for Arsenal, Man-U, Chelsea...name it….. funs to batter opponents to death! Imagine killing a brother for foreign soccer! Copy cats never learn, fantasizing about Chelsea won’t make you English. It’s high time you stopped running after clubs that don’t belong to you. A hard fact that Arsenal doesn’t have you somewhere on its supporters’ list. Be patriotic for once, support and develop your own team. Period. lillianean@yahoo.com