African administrators continue to disappoint

Peter Roebuck writes in the Sydney Morning Herald that while on-field progress is being made by black players in South Africa and Zimbabwe, it is in spite of the game's administrators and not because of them.

Zimbabwe has given Mali an opportunity to redeem himself and he has flunked it. Far from confronting those responsible for the debacle, he has become an apologist. And so again, he tries to sweeten tyranny, not end it. Not that Sonn was any better. Indeed, he was a grievous disappointment. A much more capable man with an honourable past, he too turned a blind eye to the rats in his own ranks. It was painful to hear a man of his calibre defending the indefensible merely on grounds of colour. By turning his back on election rigging, torture, rampant misuse of funds, intimidation and the other ghastly practices of tyranny, he betrayed the causes and people he was supposed to protect. He preferred to be part of the notorious Black Label Brotherhood than to advance the lot of the common man. Settling scores is a denial of greatness, not an expression of it.