Online Reporter
Tadious Manyepo-Zimpapers Sports Hub
CAPS United president Farai Jere yesterday said the Green Machine are almost done with new signings for the first half of the 2026 Castle Lager Premier Soccer League season after securing eight high-profile signatures.
Makepekepe have had a largely forgettable season.
They are on 38 points on the log standings; they are not entirely safe yet from relegation as they go into the last three games of the season.
A buoyant Jere is, however, unfazed.
He believes the Harare giants have already fenced off their Premiership status in a year the relegation dog-fight has been awkwardly fragile.
Instead, the former Premier Soccer League chairman is already leading the Green Machine in preparing for next season, which he reckons should be theirs.
CAPS United last tasted victory in 2016 when they won the league honours.
Their other league success came in 1996 while their best era in the championship was in 2004 and 2005 when they won back-to-back titles under coach Charles Mhlauri.
And Jere said some of the ingredients which they used to succeed back then involve what they have already done now.
“A club like CAPS United should have a solid recruitment policy to go with our mantra and what we stand for.
“We have to bring in the best players like what we’ve done in the past when we succeeded in the league,’’ Jere said.
“That much we know and we know that the (bad) situation we have found ourselves in is actually a result of a wrong recruitment system but it was also informed by the resources, which we had so, I want you to understand this relationship.
“Yes, it’s not like when we are not bringing the best players to the team, we don’t know but you’d also be having a constraint of resources.
“Our recruitment policy has never changed but at times you bend it a bit because you want the club to survive and stay afloat, doing the basic things.
“But we ought to have done the right thing for the current season. You can imagine if we did what we were sup-posed to do at the start of the current season . . . we could be sitting on top of the log because these players are get-ting everything unlike if you look at the previous years when we were getting results but the players welfare was not being taken care of.”
Jere said they are almost through with putting a team for 2026 in place.
“If you are really serious, you go into the market and get the player you want by the end of October. That’s what we have done already.
“We have paid the sign-on fees and everything. The players already have their contracts right now. And I’ve got confidence in them, I can demand results,” he said.
“I think it took us time to then clean the team and remain with the right personnel.
A lot of people were not seeing it. Now that we have cleaned the team, we have the right players to blend with the incoming ones.
“We will retain about 90 percent of those at the club right now. This is one of the seasons, which we want to forget quickly because of a number of things.
“Some of them, I’m a professional, but you can see there was rampant betting around and a lot of other things which are unethical, which I cannot discuss from the players.
“And then we discovered it, it was too late. But we took it up.
“When we kicked some of the players in the middle, a lot of people thought that we were being vindictive.
But the results are now coming. So, the key aspect of a football team is good recruitment.”
Jere revealed that they will be beefing up their technical team which is currently under Zambian gaffer Ian Bakala.
The latter arrived in the country and was unveiled as an assistant coach but the Green Machine, for some reason couldn’t secure the man, who was supposed to be the head coach.
And they ended up assigning Bakala to that post.
“We will have an expansive technical set-up with strikers’ coaches, set-piece coaches and performance analysts.
“We already have Joseph Kamwendo, who is with the juniors. He will be in charge of developing our philosophy and he will be sitting on the bench for the seniors.”
While Jere decided to keep the identity of the eight players who are joining Makepekepe, Zimpapers Sports Hub understands the Ngezi Platinum duo of Richard Hachiro and Obriel Chirinda and FC Platinum reserve goalkeeper Wallace Magalane are on their way to Harare.
Hachiro played for Makepekepe in 2021-2022 while Chirinda had been expected to join two years ago but his contractual obligation with Bulawayo Chiefs put the move on ice.
