Last bingo in Rovaniemi?
Zambian gentleman footballer Zeddy Saileti, 40, has played 16 consecutive seasons for Lapland side RoPS
By Petteri Ala-Kivimäki
Las Vegas is a long way from Lapland.
Or is it?
RoPS of Rovaniemi are in danger of being relegated from the Veikkaus League, the elite series of Finnish football, and of dropping into the First Division, with just two games remaining in the current season.
The reason for the Lapland team’s malaise also seems clear: RoPS (the acronym stands for Rovaniemen Palloseura) own a red-brick block of flats in central Rovaniemi, in which 12 of the team's players reside.
On the ground floor of the building there is quite a temptation - a bingo hall called "Las Vegas".
Could it be that the bingo parlour’s hypnotic, slightly smoky atmosphere has taken the best edge from the RoPS players’ performance?
The fact that there is a bingo hall in the building where many of the RoPS players live might tempt the young men to try gambling.
Besides, in addition to bingo, the attractive women working in "Las Vegas" have a habit of alluring the establishment’s customers with free coffee and sugar-coated doughnuts. Shocking!
Furthermore, the set-up would be perfect also from RoPS’s financial perspective. The players' salaries would end up back in the team’s purse, for RoPS also runs the "Las Vegas" bingo parlour.
RoPS’s Zambian-born player-coach Zeddy Saileti nevertheless coldly dismisses this carefully-spun conspiracy theory.
“They do not even know what bingo is”, Saileti says of the RoPS players who live in the building.
Eight of them are from Zambia, two from Finland (well, alright, they know), one from South Korea, and one from Nigeria.
Hmmm. So, Zeddy Saileti, do you ever play bingo?
“Never. When I gamble I do it like an average Finn: I play the slot machines, the pools, and other lottery games, but only every once in a while.”
He may have a flutter only once in a while, but on the other hand, the 40-year-old Saileti has played football in Rovaniemi and Finland consistently and well since 1994, even if recently the victories have been just as few and far between as in his sporadic gambling.
RoPS has become an "elevator club" that journeys back and forth between the Veikkaus League and the First Division: relegation, promotion, instant relegation...
The star striker Saileti has become a football legend, who travels between the Lapland capital Rovaniemi and his Zambian hometown Kitwe.
The winters Saileti spends in the warmth of Zambia, but he returns to Rovaniemi each spring like the migrating birds.
The pleasant and modest gentleman has played in RoPS colours for 16 consecutive seasons, but the current season may well be his last - at least as a player - for at the ripe old age of 40 a striker is no longer at his most deadly.
“We’ll see. I have to speak with the boss (RoPS chief executive Jouko Kiistala) to see what they think and want. When it comes to football, I am prepared to continue in any role. The game is in my blood.”
According to Kiistala, Saileti’s football blood is pumped by a heart that resembles in shape the RoPS logo.
“Zeddy is as much a RoPS man as anyone can be. Furthermore, one could not find a more trustworthy person.”
Everybody likes Zeddy Saileti, but he's more than just a nice guy: he enjoys unfailing authority among the RoPS players. Especially the younger Zambian players obey him without question.
“It is part of our culture. You respect your elders. I can tell a younger player to go and get me some food and he will do it.”
The northern burg of Rovaniemi is not necessarily a paradise from the professional footballer's perspective, but the team’s finances are flourishing.
“We always get paid on time.”
In Zambia Saileti’s pay-checks have come in handy.
“My salary is enough to cover the expenses of normal living back home in Kitwe. In Zambia the concept of family is broad, and I have paid, for example, for some of my relatives’ children’s schooling.”
Apart from his salary, the years in Rovaniemi have also provided Saileti with plenty to talk about back home.
“Even my mother does not believe my stories, for example about the white nights of summer.”
Saileti has experienced nearly every single Finnish peculiarity that there is, from sauna to Koskenkorva, the popular Finnish clear spirit. But one thing remains uncorked:
“When I first came to Finland in the winter of 1994, I thought that this was a God-awful place where one could not play football. It was well below freezing and we practiced on a gravel pitch. I went back home but returned in the spring. Now I would like to spend the entire winter, and especially Christmas, here in Rovaniemi. Then I would have experienced it all.”
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 29.9.2009
PETTERI ALA-KIVIMÄKI / Helsingin Sanomat
petteri.ala-kivimaki@hs.fi
|
| 29.9.2009 - THIS WEEK |
 Last bingo in Rovaniemi? |
|
