Bulawayo Chiefs cry foul

Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter
BULAWAYO Chiefs FC have cried foul over the treatment they received in Mutare at the weekend, blasting army side Black Rhinos for “archaic” mind games as they were denied access to the ground and dressing rooms before their clash.

Chiefs lost 2-1 to Rhinos as they continued with their downward spiral that has seen their winless run to six games and said they were surprised with the level of unprofessionalism displayed by their opponents.

“We are not sore losers and when we lose we do so gracefully, but we just want to register our disappointment with the level of unprofessionalism we faced at Sakubva Stadium. Surely, in this day and age you find people employing archaic mind games, which are not good for the game.

What happened is that when we arrived they denied us access to the ground. We had to struggle just to get in and do warm-up. As if that wasn’t enough, they refused us entry to the dressing room before the game and we had to do licence inspections in the tunnel leading to the dressing room.

Is this how football is?” said Dumisani Mantula-Sibanda, Chiefs’ secretary.

Rhinos are likely to be fined for their actions.

The Chiefs secretary added that the treatment they received doesn’t justify the team’s poor performance.

“Like I said, we’re not cry babies and by registering the complaint we want to highlight the bad things that happened.

This was the first time that we faced such treatment and we hope the match officials included those incidents in their reports.

“On the field of play, we were disappointed that we failed to maintain our lead or even snatch a point. The team’s performance is worrying everyone and very soon, we will ring some technical changes,” said Mantula-Sibanda.

In the build-up to the Rhinos game, Chiefs management met the players to understand what was affecting their performance.

Chiefs are one of the well-financed Premiership teams, having made partnerships with Cresta Hotels, betting house MWOS and Machache Security.

In Mutare, they missed the services of coach Nilton Terroso, who is attending a Uefa Pro coaching course in Europe, and the gaffer is expected to return at the end of the week in time for their game against Ngezi Platinum Stars.