Mulamba Ndaye

Mulamba Ndaye protests his innocence after his sending off against Yugoslavia




Just prior to the 1974 World Cup, Zaire became Champions of Africa for the second time (the first being in 1968 as Congo, the country changing its name in 1971). Their hero was undoubtedly striker Mulamba Ndaye whose nine goals in the tournament held in Egypt is still a record today. In the final against Zambia he scored all four of his team's goals - Zaire winning 2-0 in a replay after a 2-2 draw - and was awarded his country's highest honour, the 'National Order of the Leopard.' Ndaye himself recalls that this was a golden era for Zairian football: "The country was stable and prosperous then. People had plenty to do and very few worries. President Mobutu was mad about football, and wanted to follow the example of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana by developing the game. Everything was great. We used to travel for continental fixtures in a style befitting the country. Good coaches rushed to come and work in Zaire."

However, Egypt proved to be the zenith for both Zairian football and Ndaye's career. At the World Cup he suffered a personal nightmare. After an anonymous performance in the opening game against Scotland, he was sent off against Yugoslavia in the second game for apparently kicking the referee, and was subsequently suspended for the encounter with Brazil. However, as Ndaye explained, his red card was a case of mistaken identity: "You can tell from the referee's behaviour that they can't tell us apart. And they don't try to either. I cried terribly when I was sent off. I told the referee that it wasn't me, and Mwepu said, 'I did it, not he.' But the referee wasn't interested. All the referees here are against the black race."

After 1974, the Zairian team's fall from grace was as spectacular as its rise. They failed to qualify for the 1976 Montreal Olympics, lost in the first round of their African Nations Cup defence in the same year and were withdrawn from qualification for the 1978 World Cup by a government losing interest in their fortunes. However, they came close to qualification for the 1982 World Cup in Spain, losing out to eventual qualifiers Cameroon in the third round/semi-finals following victories over Mozambique and Madagascar. The Leopards actually won the home leg against the 'Indomitable Lions' (1-0), but suffered a 6-1 thrashing in the return leg in Yauonde. The haphazard nature of the country's football continued when they did not even enter qualifying for Mexico '86.

"That (1974) was definitely Zairian football's greatest year; the year when we swept aside everything in our path," recalls Ndaye. "But it was also the year in which Zairian football began its fall. As they say, it's easy to reach the summit; the difficult bit is to stay there. It's not just the football that went downhill. The whole country was hurtling towards an abyss."

Ndaye suffered personal tragedy in 1994 when, having been honoured by CAF at the Nations Cup in Tunisia, he was shot in the leg by renegade soldiers on his return home - the soldiers believing that he was carrying large sums of money from his award in Tunis. Four years later at the African Nations Cup in Burkino Faso, special envoys from the Voix du Congo radio station announced that Ndaye had been killed in a diamond mining accident in Angola and a minute's silence was held in his honour. The great man was, in fact, living homeless and penniless in South Africa.

"News as important as that of someone's death should be properly checked out before being announced," says Ndaye. "The Congolese leadership should have made enquiries to check whether it was true......(but) they don't have time to bother with wandering Congolese like me . In Africa, heroes are what we make of them. During your glory days they exalt you to the heavens. Then when you;re no longer in the limelight they forget about you, reject you. The history of Africa could be written in such terms."