Says Marlon Munroe
There is a saying that “Monkey know which limb to jump on.”
This simply means that at times persons might pick on someone else to combat rather than the person that they should indeed be engaging.
This saying can be applied to the recent behaviour of Kashif and Shanghai Co Director Kashif Muhammad who recently directed a tirade of verbal abuse to this writer over the coverage of the Plus One deal.
The Plus One deal was brokered last November between the Kashif & Shanghai Organisation and the overseas company.
It was a deal that was supposed to supplement the prize money offered by the organization at its annual end of year football tournament.
However, the Kashif and Shanghai Organisation has to date been unable to have the Plus One Company honour its promise of providing football kits to the winners.
This resulted in president of the Alpha United Football Club threatening to take the Kashif and Shanghai Organisation to Court over the matter.
On Monday one of K&SO directors, Aubrey ‘Shanghai’ Major, told this newspaper that the organisation will buy the promised kits if the Plus One Company fails to honour its commitment within a stipulated time.
In that article, the prize money for the second place finisher was given as $3M (instead of $2M) and $1M (instead of $200,000) was given for third place and $500,000 (instead of $50,000) for the fourth place.
Instead of seeking a retraction, Kashif Muhammad called this writer up and uttered expletives as he referred to “inaccuracies” and purported innuendos by the writer of the article which was headlined: “K&S Organisation to purchase kits for winners if Plus One company defaults- ‘Shanghai’ Major” on August 25.
Muhammad explained that the first prize of$5M worth of gear from the Plus One Company was correct in the article. However, he got abusive when he accused the writer of questioning the K&SO’s credibility.
Either Muhammad did not comprehend the gist of the article or he was simply looking for a “fall guy.”
Actually, perhaps Muhammad might have been wiser to accuse Alpha United’s boss and Presidential Adviser on Empowerment in the PPP/C government Lumumba of questioning the credibility of the organization which was done in an article headlined “Kits or Court”, which appeared in this newspaper on August 17.
Lumumba had said then, “We have been patient with these people (K&SO) and they can’t continue to pull wool over the eyes of the public. We have been waiting on these kits; look how long now and we can’t get them. We had competitions to prepare for and it was very expensive.”
He added that he is “tired of the run-around and disrespect from the organisers of the tournament, every month is next month.”
Strong words but yet not as much as a peep from Muhammad in defence of his organization.
Lumumba had added that if a court injunction has to be brought to discontinue the tournament then that will be the case.
It would have served Muhammad better to express his disgust at the contempt Plus One has shown for his organization by, to date, not honouring their commitment or, he should have responded to the comments made by Lumumba.
Instead, he chose to lambast the journalist, whom he probably believes should never write stories that portray his organisation in a negative light.
Muhammad seemed to overlook the fact that a series of unfulfilled promises to the local clubs by his organisation, eight months after the completion of his organisation’s tournament, is what probably caused the K&SO’s credibility to be questioned since ultimately they are responsible as Major quite rightly stated.
Major had said that the Plus One Company is located “somewhere outside of Miami.”
Then he said that the company’s representatives would have been in Guyana on August 24 with the Indian football team, but they were a no-show.
Subsequently, Major said that the K&S Organisation would buy the kits if the company defaulted in honouring its contractual obligations.
However, the damage had already been done but instead of opting for damage control, Muhammad went into attack mode.
The ball, however, is now in the K&S Organisation’s court.
The K&S Organisation has been saying that it has been in constant contact with the company, via e-mail. One wonders whether they have telephone numbers for the company.
The fact is that the K&S Organisation has stated that they took the Plus One Company seriously because representatives handed out vouchers, will never be enough to appease the footballers, clubs and the public. There needs to be something more tangible coming from the organization.
The end-of-year tournament has had a groundswell of support from the public, government and corporate Guyana.
With this current dilemma, the organisers find themselves in, Muhammad should realize that he is missing an excellent opportunity to clarify his organisation’s position and try and repair the relationship between his organization and the clubs involved especially Alpha United. And certainly the solution does not lie in being abusive to media operatives.
Muhammad has done his image no favour in this regard.
