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FOR the past week, the country’s two biggest and most successful football clubs, have been back to school.
Representatives of Dynamos and Highlanders have just come out of a three-day strategic retreat workshop in Victoria Falls.
It’s the first time in the history of the two football giants that they have found themselves in the same city for a similar exercise to transform themselves into entities befitting their status and size.
The workshop was organised and sponsored by their flagship sponsors, Sakunda Holdings.
This is part of the company’s efforts to provide a foundation on which the two giants can build their houses which can withstand the challenges that come with fighting on the domestic football landscape.
What is not even in question is that this is a vastly different environment to the one they used to dominate in the past.
They say numbers don’t lie and it’s the brutality of reality that Highlanders have not won the domestic league championship for 15 years.
The boys who were born, in the very year Bosso were last crowned champions of Zimbabwe, are now knocking on the door for possible inclusion, in a year or so, in the first team.
That all these boys have not had the privilege of witnessing what it means, for their beloved football club, to win the championship, provides a graphic reminder of how Bosso have come short.
The contrast between then and now can be seen in that by the time Highlanders won their last title, in 2006, they had won five of the eight championships competed for.
Dynamos, the country’s most successful football club, have also struggled, in recent years, with their last league title coming seven years ago.
The sharp contrast, between then and now, can be found in the statistics which show that by the time the Glamour Boys won their last championship, in 2014, it was their fourth triumph on the trot.
What is very clear is that, for some time now, the two giants have found themselves battling to compete, at the level which they used to take for granted, back in the days when they were the dominant forces.
Good players like Moses Chunga and Madinda Ndlovu, who used to feel it was just natural for them to play for these two giants, now don’t find any attraction to be part of these two brands.
Instead, we have seen the best of the local players choosing to go for the comfort of Ngezi Platinum and FC Platinum, who don’t only pay better, but provide better working conditions for them.
What can’t be disputed is that Dynamos and Highlanders are the heart and soul of local football and when the two giants sneeze, our entire national game catches a cold.
It’s therefore refreshing to note that Sakunda Holdings haven’t just come on board with funds to help these two giants meet their operational costs, but to try and add significant value, to their two brands.
In one of the sessions in Victoria Falls, Chunga correctly pointed out that it was one of local football’s greatest failures that Dynamos and Highlanders were not at the same level as Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates.
That’s where their sponsors want to take them so that both clubs can derive real value, in terms of both commercial and on-the-field success stories, and the retreat in Victoria Falls should be the starting point.
The challenge is with the leaders of the two giants because the message from the sponsors is loud and clear — they can’t keep trapped in the past, just banking on their size and history, to confront the challenges of today.
The sponsors can only do so much, they don’t run these clubs on a day-to-day basis, it’s the leaders who can make the real difference.
Surely, after what they learnt in Victoria Falls, we should be expecting big changes, in the way Dynamos and Highlanders have been running their affairs.
The two giants owe it to their fans and their sponsors to do that.
Online Reporter