Online Reporter
Lovemore Dube, [email protected]
HIGHLANDERS have limped for decades without a viable financial solution to guarantee a future where the club will exist and be competent enough to chase silverware.
In all this there is a nation clamouring that Highlanders is theirs.
Some are armchair fans, others throng not only Barbourfields Stadium but other stadia around the country when Highlanders are playing.
Words like: “Ngamasela, bayatshontsha. Iteam ngeyethu, lilifa lethu, sofalayo” are common.
Serving in office at Highlanders is a thankless job just like any in the public sphere where Jack and Jill who have no clue have the trumpet to blow to the equally gullible about what is going on without facts.
Perhaps true to that the club would rather collapse than members and sympathisers coming together for a solution be it stopgap or towards a permanent solution.
The on-fire clubs in Zimbabwe football in recent years have been those owned by individuals or corporates.
Highlanders and Dynamos’ model is archaic and has no place in the game.
Arcadia United, Black Aces, Gweru United, Mutare United and Zimbabwe Saints, held for so long until it could hold no more as numbers of benefactors dwindled with time.
With each passing year expectations by footballers rose, running expenses did leaving the few traditional businesspeople out of depth to continue funding.
A few companies would donate far from sponsorship levels that can sustain the projects and at the end the community teams disappeared. They left a void that is explained by small attendance figures at some of the matches.
To prove that they held out their own efforts are always being made to revive the likes of Zimbabwe Saints and one is bound to ask why Blackpool, AmaZulu, Sporting Lions, Hackney and Njube
Sundowns are buried in football history.
Community teams have a more lasting legacy effect compared to mavericks.
Dynamos and Highlanders have the numbers in terms of spectatorship. Numbers that any corporate would want to see its brand associated with.
But sadly the two teams because of poor management or matters to do with failure to attract good candidates with a good corporate appeal who can unlock sponsorships and very viable partnerships, continue to suffer.
They are gasping for breath struggling to attract quality players and get results that their fans were associated with decades ago.
Yet in all this are thousands claiming ownership of the two giants.
It is about time members seriously thought about the future, one that ensures their clubs will survive and be competent as well-oiled machines.
Ever-present allegations of financial mismanagement, factionalism and poor public perceptions have affected the teams’ appeal to potential sponsors. Companies tend to want to protect their
brand images to an extent that they would rather do away with the perceived crowd-pulling effect.
One way Dynamos and Highlanders can do this is to go on massive, deliberate member recruitment drives.
Those who love their clubs can even get their children to buy membership cards. The two teams can have up to 500 000 paid up members each buying membership for US$10 or US$20. At the end of the year, the members are asked to pay US$10 to assist the club during December to February, when players are bought and preparations for the new season start.
With over a million dollars in the kit, they would buy players. When a club buys high-profile players, fans come in numbers; when results come, they swell further, giving the teams a huge lift in terms of gate revenue and sales of replica jerseys and other memorabilia, boosting coffers.
Dynamos and Highlanders now rely on free agents instead of breaking the bank to bring knowns.
It has been a long time since Highlanders went into the market to bring real quality. Very few coaches have matched Silas Ndlovu who in the 1970s brought on board Stanley Nyika, Isaac Mafaro,
Itai Chieza, Peter Bepe, Chutika Tembo, Bruce Grobbelaar, Josiah Nxumalo, Boet Van Ays, Tymon Mabaleka, Cavin Duberley and James Nxumalo players whose legacy is enduring and literally took the club from obscurity, to a team that has a global footprint.
Dynamos and Highlanders are bigger than deals, they are bigger than those that run it or coach the clubs. But unless the owners see the bigger picture that football is no longer recreation that players belong to the entertainment world, they deserve salaries beyond living wages.
Their careers are short and without proper insurance, hence deserve to be paid well to focus on playing and not plotting when the next strike will be.
These clubs deserve men who stand for what they believe in and not proxies planted by outsiders lurking on the fringes waiting for scraps, be it players, coaches, accommodation or transport deals to pry on.
They want selfless individuals ready to serve and protect their own integrity, safeguard members’ team and also to try to grow it beyond what predecessors achieved.
There are no longer benchmarks to try and beat at Dynamos and Highlanders because of the mediocrity pools the clubs have swum in, in recent decades.
Dynamos and Highlanders members, supporters and sympathisers must prepare for the day they will have to give up their clubs. Hang on without contributing a cent, or let someone with money take over.
If that happens and the owners keep club cultures and socio-political ‘its’ and meet before kick-off times without worrying who owns or runs the club, perhaps that would be ideal.
Millions do not know who the Manchester United chairman or chief executive officer is. They are concerned about the results and care less about the boardroom.
Crowdfunding initiatives or complete takeovers are what these two teams need more than loud voices.
It is about time Highlanders did away with elections. They divide the team into factions which, over the years, have seen members fight more to save their friends than coming up with constructive ideas to take the club to the next level that has results and promises the future.
Members have been bribed or have chosen a popular candidate instead of a meritocratic process, where there is a balance between football and football business acumen.
