If this were Britain, “Sir” Karia would already be smelling his flowers

DAR ES SALAAM: IF football successes were measured by social media arguments, Tanzania would have won the World Cup several times by now. Fortunately, football is still decided on the pitch, where results have an irritating habit of exposing reality.

And the reality is this: if Tanzanians are celebrating the astonishing achievements of the Serengeti Boys today, then they must also be honest enough to acknowledge the man and the administration that laid the foundation for those achievements.

Tanzania Football Federation President Wallace Karia and his team deserve far more than a polite pat on the back.

Had this been Britain, there would probably be serious conversations about a knighthood by now.

One can almost hear the announcement: “For services to Tanzanian football and causing millions of supporters to smile more frequently than usual.”

“Sir” Karia has a rather nice ring to it.

But this is Bongo.

Here, we celebrate the fruit and forget the farmer who planted the tree, watered it through drought, protected it from goats, and waited years for the harvest.

The Serengeti Boys did not simply appear out of thin air. They are not a lucky accident. They are not a miracle.

They are the visible outcome of a vision that began years ago when the current TFF administration decided that Tanzania could no longer survive on football nostalgia and stories about what might have been.

For decades, Tanzanian football had become trapped in a cycle of endless hope. Every generation was supposed to be the one. Every tournament was meant to be the breakthrough. Every defeat was followed by promises that the future remained bright.

Then Wallace Karia arrived and did something rather unusual in football administration.

He stopped talking about the future and started building it.

The talent identification programme that discovered the Serengeti Boys did not happen by accident. Scouts were sent across the country to search for talent in places where nobody had bothered looking before.

Young players were brought into a structured environment in Tanga, where they could train, study and develop over time.

That requires money.

It requires patience.

t requires consistency.

Most importantly, it requires leadership that is prepared to endure criticism while waiting for results.

Today, the results are impossible to ignore.

The Serengeti Boys are African finalists and FIFA Under-17 World Cup qualifiers. Yet this achievement is only one chapter in a much larger story.

People forget.

Under this administration, Taifa Stars have achieved something no Tanzanian football leadership has ever achieved since independence.

Tanzania has qualified for three consecutive Africa Cup of Nations tournaments. Pause for a moment and appreciate what that means.

For decades, qualifying for AFCON was treated like a oncein-a-generation event. Entire generations grew up without seeing Tanzania at the continental finals.

Qualifying was celebrated almost like winning the tournament itself. Now it has become routine.

Routine.

That single word may represent the greatest achievement of all.

Successful football nations do not celebrate qualification because qualification is expected.

The current administration has moved Tanzania closer to that mentality than at any point in the country’s football history.

Nor has the success been confined to the men’s game. The women’s national team has also reached continental finals, demonstrating that football development is no longer focused on one team alone but is spreading across the entire ecosystem.

That is how genuine football progress looks.

It is broad.

It is sustainable.

It touches every level.

Then there is perhaps the most remarkable vote of confidence of all.

When Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda proposed jointly hosting the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations, FIFA and CAF did not laugh. They did not hesitate. They did not treat the idea as an ambitious dream.

Instead, they embraced it. That decision did not happen because of geography. It did not happen because East Africa suddenly appeared on a map for the first time.

It happened because international football authorities had observed something important. They had seen a region making progress.

They had seen football infrastructure improving.

They had seen the administration becoming stronger.

And they had seen Tanzania emerging as one of the driving forces behind that transformation.

Now the Serengeti Boys have added yet another jewel to that growing crown.

An African final.

A World Cup qualification.

A generation of young players capable of competing against the best on the continent.

And perhaps the most encouraging aspect of all is that this success appears to be emerging from a system rather than from a single gifted group of players.

Older supporters still remember the famous Kakakuona generation of the 1990s under veteran coach Sunday Kayuni.

They were talented enough to transform Tanzanian football, yet many of those players eventually disappeared because the structures required to support them were not fully developed.

Today’s situation feels very different.

There is now a pathway.

There is planning.

There is continuity.

There is a football ecosystem capable of carrying talented youngsters from youth football into senior football.

That may ultimately become Karia’s greatest legacy.

Trophies gather dust. Records are eventually broken.

But systems endure.

Years from now, people may struggle to remember the scorelines of individual matches. They may forget who scored against Algeria or who converted a penalty against Egypt.

What they are more likely to remember is that during Karia’s presidency, Tanzanian football stopped merely dreaming and started achieving.

Three consecutive AFCON qualifications.

Women’s football is reaching continental finals.

The successful AFCON 2027 hosting bid.

African club football is becoming increasingly competitive.

The Serengeti Boys are reaching a continental final and qualifying for the World Cup.

Taken individually, each achievement is impressive. Taken together, they represent the most successful period of football administration Tanzania has witnessed since independence.

That is not an opinion, mind you…

That is a matter of record.

That brings us back to the central question: what more must a football administrator do to receive his flowers?

Must he deliver four AFCON qualifications?

Five?

Must Tanzania win the World Cup before some people finally acknowledge the transformation unfolding before them?

The truth is, supporters are often reluctant to praise leaders while they are still in office. Criticism comes quickly; recognition usually arrives much later.

History, however, is often kinder than public opinion.

And history may conclude that Karia and his administration inherited a football nation rich in talent but poor in systems, then spent years quietly building the foundations now producing results across every level of the game.

Fair enough: Karia was doing his job.

He was elected to do exactly that, and he is still doing it. But we have a curious habit of treating success as mere duty while treating failure as a national catastrophe worthy of endless debate.

When things go wrong, we remember names, faces and titles. When things go right, we grow shy with praise and say, “Well, he was only doing his job.”

That argument sounds reasonable until one remembers that not everyone does their job exceptionally well.

Plenty of football administrators across Africa and beyond are also doing their jobs, yet few can point to three straight AFCON qualifications, progress in women’s football, a successful AFCON hosting bid, thriving youth development programmes and an Under-17 team bound for the World Cup.

Duty may explain effort, but it does not guarantee results.

Duty may explain effort, but it does not automatically explain results.

Praising Karia, therefore, is not hero worship. It is recognition of performance. If we criticise leaders when things go badly, we should be just as generous when things go well.

Otherwise, we risk becoming the kind of people who notice the referee only when he makes a mistake.

Otherwise, we risk becoming the sort of people who only notice the referee when he makes a mistake.

Football, like life, should reward results. And by any fair measure, Tanzanian football under Karia has produced results previous generations could only dream of.

That alone makes a simple “well done” not a favour, but an act of fairness.

ALSO READ: Trust the process, it will pay off in AFCON 2027

The Serengeti Boys are not the beginning of that story.

Nor are they the end.

They are simply the latest evidence that the vision is working.

For that reason alone, Tanzanians should not wait for retirement speeches, farewell ceremonies or history books before acknowledging what has been achieved.

Flowers, after all, are best given while the recipient is still around to smell them. Au vipi wadau??