Not very often do we hear of an entire executive committee of a given football club resign, however, if something like that happens, you sense danger or something very wrong going on at minimum. Indeed, if Rayon Sports executive committee stick to their threat and went ahead to resign, under unclear circumstances as some members have already claimed, it’s bound to be such a terrible shame to football in this country. Early in the week, Tuesday to be precise, Mr. Paul Muvunyi, Rayon Sports president or now ex, unintentionally dropped the resignation threat bomb just a day after his team had lost 3-0 in the second round first leg of Caf Confederations Cup against Sudan side El Merreikh in Khartoum. I am not sure Mr. Muvunyi intended it when he exclusively revealed to Times Sport (ref. New Times of Wednesday, March 26) that he intended to resign over he described as failure by the sports ministry and Ferwafa to help his club (appropriately) for its trip to Sudan. But before you loose a tad of concentration; Paul Muvunyi has already confirmed his resignation along with his three other executive members including the vice president Saidi Habiyambere, Prosper Muhirwa and secretary general Farouk Nduwumwe. It was just drama all the way, on and off the field for the men in Blue ahead of their meeting with El Merreikh, probably their biggest match in years in every aspect. It started with key players including Kase Kalisa and Labama Bokota missing training—the former was a late inclusion in the travelling party while the later was omitted very late on. Enter the air ticket-flight-schedule-and-visa-mess drama The team wanted to travel on Wednesday and indeed went head to book for that day but the sports ministry had already booked them for Thursday, both with Kenyan Airways. By both booking for the same delegation on separate days, it created confusion at Kenya Airways who in turn decided to cancel the two arrangements until…… Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were all spent with all parties involved; that included the sports ministry, the football federation, Rayon and Satguru (the travel agency that made the reservations) accusing or may be I should say, blaming one another for the mess. Then, when finally Rayon made the trip on Friday, just a day before the match, they got stuck in Nairobi for more than 24 hours because they didn’t have Sudanese visas, can you believe! How doomed. Luckily, Caf pushed the game forward by two days. Then, on match day, came the inevitable defeat against a side that did not only reach last year’s final on the same competition but also recruited massively as they hope to make yet another assault on the continent’s second biggest club football competition. No wonder, they easily won the tie 3-0 and it could have been even more or worse for Rwanda’s representative who didn’t get even a single attempt at the opposition goal and had a player sent off. The impact of resignation When you’re preparing for a game against a side that has just beaten 3-0 and dominated you for the entire 90 minutes, the last thing you need is anything that distorts your concentration, unfortunately, that’s the situation my friends at Rayon find themselves in. However, whether the team prepares well enough for the game, I’m very certain they’re most likely to lose, isn’t really my business of immediate concern but one thing that certainly could have long-lasting impact on the way football is governed in this country, is the resignation of the Rayon administrators. If you really take trouble to care about the Rwandan football, particularly its development then you must have a very reason to get concerned with all this resignation saga of the top leaders of one of the leading clubs in the country. We shouldn’t be fooled to forget that Rayon and its followers is actually a key player as far taking football in this country to a level we all desire for is concerned. They are. And that brings me to my main point of concern, which is my appeal to anyone concerned not to underestimate the resignation of Rayon Sports officials and the effect it could have on the way people’s mindset in regards to how football in Rwanda is governed. Unprecedented For all the years I’ve been involved in football in this country, I have been able to interact and talk about Rwanda’s football with those in the know-how from the past to present but never before, have I heard of an entire executive committee of a given club having resigned their duties. This means that if Mr. Muvunyi and co. resists any temptation to change their mind, then we are in for an unprecedented occurrence and if something like happens; you come to think, ‘oh, maybe there is a problem’ or ‘maybe something is gravely wrong somehow, somewhere’. Unsurprisingly, there has been no official word from either the ministry of sports or the football federation in reaction to Rayon officials’ unprecedented act, at least by yesterday. Bottom line When, you’re faced with such an unfortunate situation with a number of important players involved yet none of them is brave enough to come and admit his mistake, you really don’t expect things to get better, in the near future, to say the least. And you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realize that the last ten days or so have been such a difficult time for not only Rayon Sports but Rwandan football in general and the resignation of the four Rayon officials was just the icing on the cake. After this and many more swifts and turns to follow in the coming days, weeks and probably months, my biggest worry is, where do we go from here? Over to you. Contact: hamza.nkuutu@gmail.com
