ZESCO United Football Club Team Ya Ziko
ZESCO United Football Club Management yesterday announced the long-awaited news of the new club Chief Executive Officer (CEO) following the departure of Richard Kabwe Mulenga.
Like the white smoke that emerges from the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, signaling that the cardinals have elected the new pope, Charles Kalala was on April 5, 2022, at exactly 12:45 unveiled as the man anointed to take up the reigns at ZESCO United for the next 3-years.
Like past CEO’s, Justin Mumba and Richard Kabwe Mulenga, Kalala will be hoping to build on the clubs successes by strategically adopting what has worked in the past, mixing that with modern and workable trends.
WHO IS CHARLES KALALA?
Kalala is not new to the beautiful game and to the corridors of ZESCO United secretariat. He was a key member of the Justin Mumba led executive that first pioneered ZESCO United’s steady but sharp rise in both the domestic and international game for almost 8 years. He also briefly served under the reign of Mulenga.
His footsteps where largely dotted around player recruitment and other key administrative matters that saw ZESCO United harvest some of the finest budding talent that Zambia and the continent had to offer.
With Mumba as CEO, Kalala and company, would go on to deliver 7 league titles, 5 Absa Cups, and 4 Charity Shield honors. The club would further go on to become the country’s pride in CAF competitions, finishing in the semi-finals of the 2016 Champions League and a quarter final finish in the Confederation Cup in 2017.
“I feel very delighted to be given an opportunity to serve a club that I love the most. The team that exposed me to understand football. The team that made me realize that football is in my DNA. It was at ZESCO United where I got to understand the tenets of football,
“I was part of ZESCO United from 2011 to 2019 and at that time we made a team that reflected and understood the values of success and we achieved that by winning 7 titles. This was a period I served in the clubs Executive. I nearly headed all sub -committees. I oversaw events, player status, largely recruitment and at some point, I oversaw technical until 2019,” Kalala recalls.
The ZESCO United CEO is mindful of the pressure that comes with leading one of the top teams in Zambia.
“Without pressure things can’t move. And I believe we want the team to get back its name as a big powerhouse in the game. We want teams to fear us once again. Yes, the club is in the transformation phase, which I feel is a window for us to rekindle our image as a force to reckon with.
“Pressure is part of life. There is a saying that to beat the best you must be the best. I am very much aware that I am taking over from two successful CEOs. Justin Mumba was here, and he succeeded, Richard Kabwe Mulenga was here and he too succeeded. They proved that they were the best and I need to prove that too but of course working with everyone at the club.”
Kalala is not shy to consult his predecessors when time comes: “I will consult them as much as I have to because they did it here. This consultation is crucial for the club’s success to continue.”
Author: Desmond Katongo
