Over the last few weeks, I have learned that African presidents — no, presidents worldwide — prime ministers, MPs, senators, leaders of NGOs and any other kind of leader need to learn from footballers.

Yes, firstly, one thing that football teaches us is that, however good you are, you cannot score goals — achieve your goals — without first having a team to support you. You cannot score goals unless you have a good defence behind you to prevent your goals being nullified when your opponents score more goals than you.

You need a good midfield and other attackers to feed you the ball in order for you to score those goals.

Secondly, you have to be prepared to work with the rest of the team. If you try to shine on your own, in the end it works to the detriment of the overall performance of the whole team and, therefore, your own performance.

Once you start demanding, or the team starts believing, that they all exist to pass you the ball so that you score and shine, it affects those you play with. I have heard of several examples of brilliant players who start thinking that the whole purpose of the team’s existence is to allow them to shine.

At that point, even the number of goals drops, and what the great man thought was win-win ends up being lose-lose.

READ MORE: The Black Colonialist: Africa’s Self-Inflicted Wound – Part 1 

This connects with my main point today. It is fascinating how two of the greatest footballers of our era have reached very different moments in the question of leaving.

Different endings

One has chosen his horse well and is riding towards a farewell with tears in his eyes. Messi has said that Inter Miami will probably be his last club, and he has now announced his retirement from international football.

If he is humble enough to feel that he has nothing more to give, even if others want him to go on giving, it is better to retire before you become a drag on the team. Messi’s farewell is one of sweet sorrow and, I think, satisfaction despite the sorrow.

Now take the other one. Based on his star power from his great performances in the past, he has been at the centre of a big international incident after leaving Portugal’s camp when he felt the terms of an agreement about his use had not been fulfilled.

He later apologised for leaving, denied demanding playing time and said he was not retiring from international football. Ironically, he probably should be treated like the icons of yore, but he is not the one who should say that, just as a certain president should not be the one who demands that he deserves to be awarded a prize.

You can tarnish your legacy in just one hissy fit.

READ MORE: The Black Colonialist: Africa’s Self-Inflicted Wound – Part 2

It can happen, too, to the nicest of people. Wenger was not only a great coach; he was among those who raised the alarm about corruption in the game while he struggled to keep his beloved club among the top teams during the financially constrained Emirates years.

Now many people believe he has been proven right about corruption, but he probably should have gone a little earlier, before his team’s decline set in. The few added years tarnished his reputation then, although his legacy is now again widely praised.

The same applies to our beloved politicians, who are often even worse at knowing when to go. Hence my love of this poem by Bertolt Brecht, On Hearing A Mighty Statesman Has Fallen Ill:

If the indispensable man frowns
Two empires quake.
If the indispensable man dies
The world looks around like a mother without milk for her child.
If the indispensable man were to come back a week after his death
In the entire country there wouldn’t be a job for him as a hall-porter.

The more arrogant we are, the more we fail to realise that we are not indispensable. My father taught me this.

He led a charity — an NGO — fighting for children’s right to play, space where they could play and the need for creative space. When he reached retirement age, they wanted him to continue, but he refused.

READ MORE: The Black Colonialist: Africa’s Self-Inflicted Wound – Part 3

He said that what he had been able to achieve, he had done so. If he stayed on longer, he would not achieve any more; it was time to hand over to someone with new vision and passion, so he stepped down.

The crown

To take an example closer to home, it has always fascinated me why Nyerere chose to translate Julius Caesar into Kiswahili rather than any other Shakespeare play, as a major theme of the play is precisely what happens when you cling to power and indeed wish to arrogate more power to yourself.

Caesar may have been a great leader, but people feared his increasing megalomania. In particular, I remember the passage where he is offered the crown: to become a king, a president for life or, if you like, a leader with infinitely extended presidential terms.

He is offered the crown three times, and three times he refuses it, but people can see he refuses reluctantly, as he would really have taken it. Each time, the crowd cheers in delight, for although they have loved Caesar, they do not want him to become that king or permanent leader.

Finally, when he sees that rejection of the crown offered by his chief chawa, he falls down and faints. In the meantime, those who have been defacing his pictures are arrested.

I remembered this particularly in 1985. Nyerere had announced clearly that it was time for him to step down and hand over to another, but the big shots in the party kept offering him “the crown.”

READ MORE: The Fatal Flaw of Regime Change 

Each time he refused it — not reluctantly in his case — the majority cheered, so the attempt to turn Nyerere into king failed. And he was right.

At that time, as I remember, people had become increasingly tired of austerity forced upon the country after the war against Amin and during the painful economic reforms of the period. Nyerere’s popularity had taken a serious hit, and opposition to him was growing, particularly among the rising middle class.

But because he clearly refused “the crown”, his popularity returned in his opposition to the increasing corruption and self-aggrandisement that followed, and his legacy has remained largely intact as Baba wa Taifa. I seriously doubt whether that would have happened had he accepted the crown and continued to rule.

Nyerere stepped down voluntarily in 1985, and Senghor did so in Senegal in 1980, but how many others have done the same?

So why do footballers and presidents fail to understand this logic?

The founder

The first is what has been described as founder syndrome. It is usually applied to companies or organisations where the person who founded it with tremendous vision and passion builds a wonderful organisation, then ends up destroying what they have built by stubbornly staying on too long and blocking any attempt at forward movement or renewal.

READ MORE: Coercion Is Not Negotiation: Tanzania’s Drivers’ Strike and the High Cost of One-Sided Rule-Making 

Then, when the founder does move aside or dies in office, what they have created dies a death. Like a great tree that casts its shade over a large area, nothing can really grow beneath its shade; when it falls, there are only a few weak shoots that wither in the sun.

This pattern affected some leaders who had led the struggle for independence, or the struggle against dictatorship after independence. They began to resemble those they fought against and could not let go.

They believed in the famous phrase often attributed to Louis XIV: L’état, c’est moi — I am the state — and then destroyed the very state they claimed to embody.

In the case of footballers, it might be called star syndrome: L’équipe, c’est moi, I am the team. But tired legs cannot be denied, and the team can flourish only when you recognise you are no longer the force you thought you were and step aside.

And when you stop being arrogant enough to think there was no team before you. Every star inherits a legacy.

Of course, with our beloved political leaders, there is another factor that overrides everything else. Once power becomes a source of wealth and protection, leaders may resort to illegal ways to amass wealth, remain in power and even kill the people they claimed to lead.

The more they do so, the more they have to maintain their position for fear of what will happen to them if they let go. It is a vicious downward spiral, and the logic of that spiral was seen in Julius Caesar, as even those closest to you may turn against you.

In the end, no leader, footballer or founder is indispensable. The real test of leadership is whether you can build a team, an organisation or a country that remains strong after you have gone

Richard Mabala is an educator, poet and author. He can be reached at rmabala@yahoo.com or on X as @MabalaMakengeza. The opinions expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chanzo. If you are interested in publishing in this space, please contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.