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Tadious Manyepo Sports Reporter
CAPS United players are facing a bleak festive season with their employer failing to pay them their November and December salaries.
And a player exodus is looming too, with most of the players whose contracts expire this month and mid-next year reluctant to go to the negotiating table.
Makepekepe’s scheduled league match against Black Rhinos on Saturday was postponed after the team failed to gather their players for the mandatory Covid-19 tests.
After their failure to provide Covid-19 results to the Premier Soccer League at least 24 hours before a match, as is the requirement prior to the Black Rhinos match, it has since emerged CAPS United did not conduct any tests on their players.
Their failure to furnish the PSL with the results left the league with no option but to cancel the game against the army team, prompting murmurs of discontent from Rhinos.
After the players boycotted training at the training venue demanding their November salary, Makepekepe management then decided against giving them money for transport.
The money for transport is US$2 per player per day.
Their failure to get the transport fare has seen Makepekepe players staying home for the past week, resulting in them failing to turn up for the routine Covid-19 tests last week.
A senior player from the team yesterday said the players are only refusing to train, not to go to work and get tested for Covid-19.
“We are not refusing to go to work. Instead, we only refuse to train while we are at work. But nothing has been done by management, instead they just stopped giving us transport money to and from work,” he said.
“One thing that I can tell you right now is if the management gives us transport fares, we will go to work but we will definitely ask for our dues before we can train.
“We are now at loggerheads and as players we don’t even know what management is planning but what we are asking for at the end of the day is an increase in our salaries and to be paid what they owe us. It’s frustrating to say the least. We didn’t refuse to get tested but we were not given the transport fees to go for the tests. We are ready to undergo Covid-19 tests anytime any day but we can’t walk to town for the same. We don’t have the money,” said the player, who asked not to be named for fear of victimisation.
This could only be the tip of the iceberg concerning the problems bedevilling the Green Machine with management reportedly considering selling the club’s franchise.
For a team that has been preaching the commercialisation gospel yet failing to secure any meaningful sponsors and for a team which recently acquired a new coach to be failing to gather their players for mere Covid-19 tests speak volumes of the crisis the club is facing.
One of the players whose contract is expiring at the end of this month said he was already on his way out but will engage the Footballers Union of Zimbabwe to help him get his dues from Makepekepe.
“Well, I don’t want to say a lot about it but I am on my way out of this team. I am not very much worried about not having been paid what’s due for me, I will just engage FUZ to help me out,” he said.
Experts fear CAPS United will go the same way other clubs like Black Aces, Motor Action, Gunners, Zimbabwe Saints, Monomotapa, Shooting Stars, Kiglon and Lengthens, among others, have gone.
Efforts to get a comment from CAPS United vice-president Nhamo Tutisani, who has been spearheading the commercialisation thrust at the team, were fruitless yesterday.
“I am in a meeting, please phone back after an hour,” he said.
Tutisani then later on said he was not in a position to comment, saying they were going for the annual break.
Online Reporter