PROHIBITIVE transfer fees being demanded by local clubs will remain a stumbling block for Zambian players wishing to clinch professional football deals abroad.
Zambia is endowed with massive football talent which mostly go to waste as these desperate promising players end up not realising their full potential.
Several foreign clubs have been knocking on the Zambian doors but the players just attend trials and fail to sign contracts.
On the flip side, some of our local footballers, who have managed to win contracts abroad, have been duped into signing contracts which appear attractive on paper but the opposite is true on the ground.
At times these players just sneak out of the country without authority from their parent clubs and end up hitting into a ‘brick wall’ when finalising deals since they trips have no blessings from home.
Usually such incidents happen when ‘greedy’ agents, obviously taking advantage of the desperation and to some extent players’ ignorance, sneak them out of the country without first talking to the parent club.
This is just but a tip of the iceberg on how some of our budding players see their talents going to waste.
Sometimes we are left to wonder whether as a nation we do not have proper player managers and administrators at club level who have knowledge on football market issues.
This past week, the local transfer news was on Power Dynamos striker Alex Ng’onga, who headed to Gabon in search of ‘greener’ pasture at CF Mounana, the club that empted the Zambian side from the 2015 CAF Confederation Cup competition.
I was left wondering why Ng’onga could think of a professional deal in Gabon whose league I believe is no better than Zambia.
Whatever was the driving force behind Ng’onga’s haste move to a club that was only formed in 2006, I don’t think going to Libreville was in the best interest of his football development despite Mounana indicating that they just wanted the Zambian forward on a three-month loan before selling him to a European club.
What shocked me most was the price tag which Power pinned on Ng’onga.
While Mounana were ready to snap up the player for $70,000 (about K504, 000), Power are said to have come up with an astronomical figure of $400,000 (about K2.8 million).
The information I got was that in fact Power is richer in terms of resources compared to Mounana and one wonders why the Zambian club can demand for an ‘abnormal’ transfer fee.
Since there is a stalemate between the two sides, Ng’onga will have no choice but to return to Arthur Davies and wait for future invitations.
The Ng’onga debacle should also serve as a lesson for clubs to begin to rate their players fairly but put correct price tags.
I believe time is ripe for the formation of a players’ union to protect the footballers’ interests. Email: malungaf@gmail.com