Zimbabwe, Aiming to be Africa's Peru

Malaysia booked a friendly against England only to have the FA send a Gillingham side to masquerade as the Three Lions.

Substitute 'Zimbabwe' for 'England' and 'Monomotapa' for 'Gillingham' and that's pretty much what happened to Malaysia.

Although you probably have to also swap out "Three Lions" for something. And to be fair to the analogy, nobody would have been able to tell the difference between the English National team and a third division side but yeah, Zimbabwe tried slip all of Malaysia a mickey.

In the scandalous affair, Monomotapa did not only pose as the National team, but also played their two games using the national team’s colours. Now the Football Association of Malaysia is accusing ZIFA of lacking respect and questionable integrity after it was duped into believing Monomotapa were the Zimbabwe national team.

Lacking respect? No shit. This is the same FA whose chief is open about having her way sexually with national team players.

Incidentally, she—Henrietta Rushwaya—is still the head of the country's FA. And she was totally cool with it saying of the Malaysians, "Let them eat crappy club teams."

That's a little cooler than her actual quote, but not much less bizarre as she tapped Monomotapa for the trip after realizing the two-match tilt "would not be of benefit to the Warriors as they do not have any immediate assignments."

So it's not enough for Rushwaya to screw her own players, and now she feels the need to screw over entire countries. This actually corresponds with ZIFA by-laws that are based on the operating tenet of "Eh, if we're not going to get much out of it, let's dick over the other guys."

Rushwaya added a verbal shoulder shrug in sort of defending both the organization and the club: "Whilst it is not right to use the national colours, we cannot stop anyone from using the kit."

This is actually pretty awesome. You and your 10 best friends are now the Zimbabwe national soccer team.

Anyway, Monomotapa lost the first match 4-0 to the 157th-FIFA-ranked Malaysian squad before salvaging some national club pride in a 1-0 victory.

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Africa News Roundup

Lost in the hullabaloo of the Ronaldo transfergasm yesterday were a few stories from Africa worth noting.

• Zimbabwe's U-17 youth soccer team was invited to the 2010 Junior Olympics as the African representative. Why? Because Zimbabwe was the only team not caught using overage players that used players of the proper age. Henrietta Rushwaya who claims this invite is a vindication of the decision to follow the rules as though she had to struggle with that choice. You might recall Rushwaya is the soccer chief who likes to sleep with her country's national team players.
  


• The Premier League trophy made a trip to Uganda recently much to the delight of the Ugandans. While Uganda may be a third world country, it's smack talk is certainly first rate as a 19 year-old Ugandan laid the smack down on Steven Gerrard bunny hard core style (H/T ONTD FB).

"I'm so happy," beamed 19-year-old Daniel Okei. "I thought that trophy only existed on TV. But now I've been closer to it than Steven Gerrard ever has!"

• Swaziland soccer "star" Mduduzi ‘Aghahowa’ Mdluli was arrested for stealing a light bulb. Aghahowa had just purchased his booze from the liquor store and had bright idea as he walked out to steal the light bulb. Or perhaps the light went out in his head and he wanted to replace it. Or maybe it was for his Uncle Fester trick. I have no idea.
  

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Sexy fun in Zimbabwe keeps team from qualifying for World Cup

Henrietta Rushwaya is an anomaly. She is the CEO of the Zimbabwe Football Association. Pretty cool, huh? She is also a cougar of the highest level. So much so that she has been cited as the main reason that Zimbabwe did not make it out of the first round of African qualifying. It seems that she tired out certain stars before they even took the pitch.

Rushwaya, it is reported, forced coach Jose Claudinei Valinhos to release a few players from camp after curfew so that they could pleasure each other. One of those players should be familiar to most UF readers. It seems that Ms. Rushwaya has a special place in her heart (at the very least) for Manchester City striker Benjani. From the article:

Rushwaya and the player have left the senior team in a state of shock. When he comes home especially on a siesta from his overseas club, he camps at Rushwaya’s residence where they live literary like husband and wife…

Nice.

Diving a little bit deeper into the article, one can find this gem as well:

Rushwaya herself is known for being generous with her body and numerous scribes have had a go. She is a very kind boss whose generosity has won her friends especially in the media as most of her scandals are deliberately swept under the carpet

According to an anonymous source. Nice reporting standards there, Zimbabwe media.

Finally, there is one more piece of information that just cannot be ignored. It seems that Rushwaya trysts take place in one of Harare's swankiest hotels, a Holiday Inn. Now, I'm no tastemaker when it comes to which hotels to use for sex, but I've always been more of a Red Roof Inn man myself. Perhaps Ms. Rushwaya is just reaching a little too high in expecting the front desk manager at a Holiday Inn to keep her secrets for her.

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What Do Undertakers, Cat Fights, Zimbabwe, Jermain Defoe Have In Common?

They are all found in this post. Seriously. Sometimes in my research I come across some truly awe-inspiring articles. This is one of those times. So much good stuff...so little time. Ostensibly, this article is about Manchester City striker Benjani Mwaruwari and his off-field women issues, but it continues on to a broader perspective.

Let's just start at the beginning, in Zimbabwe...

Apparently, the Undertaker, as Benjie is affectionately known and has huge following probably because of his money, arrived at the night club late on Saturday in the company of a group of girls and his brother.

Benjie and his crew were seated at the VIP section, an eyewitness said, when an argument arose between the two unidentified ladies.

"Benjani came to (name of the nightclub) with a group of ladies and they went to the VIP bar section. No one knows the reason these ladies fought. We only saw Benjani and his brother (name supplied) dashing out of the VIP bar section leaving the two ladies to finish what they had started. However, the two followed him and they exchanged blows in front of him,” said an eyewitness.

Great. I did not know Benjani was the Undertaker. He might to watch out for Vince McMahon, who could sue him for infringment.

Women fighting over a footballer...nothing new but definitely fun.

Footballers fighting over a woman? Even better.

Remember that Benjani is the same player who once fought former Warriors skipper, Peter Ndlovu, over a woman.

Better. Also of note, Benjani has also taken Ndlovu's armband as captain of the Zimbabwe national team. This is getting better.

Ironically, the man who replaced Benjani at Portsmouth Jermaine Defoe was recently said to have ‘… probably slept with the majority of the female patrons in any given London nightclub.’

Bliss. A nice dig at Defoe. Now back to the Ndlovu.

Ndlovu, arguably the best player ever to emerge from this nation, has had a fair share of such headlines.The Flying Elephant, as he is affectionately known, is “blessed” with countless children.

Well, I'm not sure if blessed is the word I would use, especially if it's associate with countless.

The article goes on detailing other Zimbabwean footballer women foibles.

There is one case of a promising Highlanders player who was beaten up over a girl recently. Another Highlanders’ duo went as far as literally fighting over a prostitute at a Harare hotel.

Plus, there is an added bonus of Beckham, Ronaldo, and Abramovich bon mots towards the end.

I suggest you read it yourself.

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When $300 Billion is Not Enough

Zimbabwe's Dynamos budgeted 300-billion Zimbabwe dollars (Z$) to cover the costs of its return leg of the African Champions League tie against Etoile Sahel of Tunisia.

And it's not enough.

Because of currency buying regulations and hyperinflation the team is unable to purchase enough US dollars to pay for the trip.

The current cost of the trip would be 10-trillion Zimbabwe dollars.

At the turn of the new year, the country's Central Statistical Office had officially announced that inflation had passed the 100,000% mark. And on April 4, the Zimbabwe Financial Gazette reported that, by February, it had jumped to 164,900% (And you thought W. couldn't fuck things up any worse).

Last week, when the country unfixed its pegged exchange rates, Zimbabawe's official exchange rate floated to $1US = Z$ 168,815,000 (that's $169 million if the zeros are confusing you), meaning the cost of the trip would be about US$50,000.

So it's not just that Dr. Evil is running the Zimbabwe FA, it's that the government is trying to run a country on Monopoly money. Ask Germany, it doesn't work. The irony being it's a Munich-based company that's literally printing the money to run the economy into the ground. The München-based company, Giesecke & Devrient is receiving more than US$700,000 a week for delivering bank notes at the absurd rate of Z$170 trillion a week.

Hey, at least the Germans have experience with this sort of thing. Thankfully Zimbabwe doesn't have an antsy megalomaniacal streak in them. So it's neighbors are safe.

Anyway, it's a bummer because Etoile Sahel are the defending champions and Dynamos hold a 1-0 lead after the home leg and if any club would have that kind of coin you'd think it would be one whose nickname is the "Glamour Boys". But even at 10-trillion, it's probably even outside the spending habits of Roman Abramovich.

Although if anybody else has 10-trillion dollars laying around and has always wanted to help out Zimbabwe, opportunity has met preparation.

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