Janny's rise to dizzy heights

Zambia's referee export to the world

Janny Sikazwe

By VICTOR KALALANDA, August 18, 2018*

In 2010, referee Janny sikazwe caused a furore in Konkola stadium after flashing two red cards.

Irate fans nearly descended on him for a very good beating. 

Time has since passed but the incident is still fresh in his mind, as if written on brass, because it is by a whisker he dodged death that day.

The violence followed a tightly contested encounter that saw Konkola Blades losing to Nchanga Rangers, prompting incensed fans of the former to virtually take the law into their own hands.

Sikazwe can no longer recall the game’s exact scoreline but he describes the horror it brought him as the “worst of my career,” becoming an integral part of the larger story of the highflying top FIFA referee.

The two red cards he had meted out on erring Konkola players in the said game would have tragically ended his life but he discloses that lack of compromise has stood him in good stead.

“We’ve got good referees but FIFA needs top referees. And how we are going to differentiate between good and top referees it is where difficult situations are concerned. When we’ve a difficult situation and you make the correct decision, then you will be considered as a top referee,” Sikazwe states.

For him, as such, it is fait accompli when he flashes his cards, points at the penalty spot or anywhere else: never does he shy away from the toughest of decisions.

He is a soft-spoken man with a relatively hefty CV at the age of 39, a man of an erect figure and charming looks, born to Winford and Mary Sikazwe.

Referee blood runs through his family considering that his father, who has since died, was a local referee himself and went on to introduce his son to the career he has now mastered.

Sikazwe attained his qualification as a local referee in 1999 and therefrom started nurturing an upward trajectory which saw FAZ award him in 2005 as the best referee in the FAZ Super Division League.

Yet again after the 2006 League season, the Association recognised him as the best match official of the year.

He wooed, 2 years later, the attention of FIFA: “In 2007 that’s when I became a FIFA referee and then I had the chance to go for COSAFA U20 in South Africa.”

Following the COSAFA stint in 2008, the red carpet of destiny started to roll out itself as two years later the Kapiri Mposhi resident got the opportunity to officiate at the All Africa Games in Mozambique under CAF.

Subsequently, in 2012, Sikazwe took his hitherto best bite at the cherry when he was appointed by CAF as one of the match officials at the Gabon/Equatorial Guinea AFCON, which the Chipolopolo Boys won.

His officiating credentials, from 2012 onwards, started getting all the more augmented and recognised, as underscored by CAFs policy to make use of his services in past AFCONs.

Today without exaggeration, he is Zambia’s best referee bar none, with the last four AFCONs engraved on his profile. His prominence, besides, is illustrated by his recent awards as FAZ’s best referee in 2015 and later on in 2017.

He’s the arrow that has travelled the farthest, adding pride to services of Zambia’s pioneer referees like Richard Kapansa, Peter Chelelwa, Bennett Simfukwe, Dickson Kombe and Arthur Davies (European), all chronicled in late sportswriter Ridgeway Liwena’s book The Zambian Soccer Scene. Kapansa was the first black man to chair what is called today as the Referee’s Association of Zambia (RAZ).

Incidentally, Sikazwe had landed nomination for last year’s CAF best referee award which, unfortunately, was cancelled.

Aside from his senior engagements with FAZ and CAF, the hubby who has three children with Diana Kalandala has won the coveted confidence of FIFA insofar as he has presided over mammoth games like at the U17 World Cup in 2015 and the U20 World Cup in 2017.

His fame, in fact, grew to iconic proportions back in 2016 when he not only refereed over the opening match of the Japan FIFA Club World Cup, but also officiated in the tournament’s mouth-watering but final clash between Real Madrid and Kashima Antlers.  

Having reached the quarter finals as fourth official at the just-ended World Cup in Russia, and being Zambia’s first referee to participate in the competition, Sikazwe has rubbed shoulders with the finest whistlers on the planet of football, and walked in the most glorious autumn of his career.

Through persistence of effort, he has sampled the aura of elite refereeing, ensuring that even the world’s best footballers are protected or disciplined on the pitch.

At the last World Cup he became the full embodiment of Zambia’s sporting aspirations, explaining why his fellow compatriots feel that their Chipolopolo Boys, in effect, participated in the competition. It’s like the claim that Africans won the World Cup because the France squad was predominantly of black race.

“As I watched Jan officiate the game between Belgium and Panama, it was like watching Zambia. You could feel that Zambia was there at the World Cup,” remarks Aswell Shonga, a football enthusiast.

In the same vein, FAZ supremo Andrew Kamanga has said of Sikazwe that “[FAZ is] proud of [his] landmark achievement,” with President Edgar Lungu also stating that Zambia’s most successful referee is “doing a great job . . . we wish him good things to come.”

Intriguingly, moreover, it is while serving as referee that the United Church of Zambia (UCZ) devotee has also fulfilled his responsibilities as an educational administrator under the Ministry of General Education.

As for him, pursuing such an unpopular career as refereeing and moulding a household name from its clay is an achievement of purely religious origin.

“Whatever I have achieved is because of God, and I stand on Psalm 125 verses 1 and 2,” he announces.

Refereeing has taken him to its picturesque mountaintops as well as dreadful valleys, where he was almost skinned alive on the pitch by unruly spectators.

He explains his job thus: “FAZ prepares some exams and when you qualify as their referee, the grading comes with your performance. If you’re performing well, CAF and FIFA will identify you and you’ll be participating in their big competitions.”

He states that a referee who will go places must boast of a strong personality and be able to interpret the laws of football when awarding red cards or penalties, for instance.

“Referees should have courage even in these local games because when they are [televised] on Super Sport, CAF and FIFA [referee] instructors watch and people will say we have seen a referee in Zambia,” he says.

In future, the Nkrumah University alumnus is “looking forward to becoming a CAF and FIFA instructor because,” he says, “I need to develop referees.”

Now at home in Kapiri Mposhi, as he looks back on the multitudes that swamped him upon arrival from Russia at the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport, the top FIFA referee finds Zambians as deeply loving, saying: “I only have these words for them: thank you!”

Original copy was first published in the Zambia Daily Mail on the stated date*