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Eddie Chikamhi
Senior Sports Reporter
DYNAMOS vice chairman Vincent Chawonza says the Glamour Boys stands by its decision to sack head coach Herbert Maruwa and to suspend assistant coach Murape Murape and team manager Richard Chihoro in a major shake-up announced yesterday.
Chawonza, who is also the club’s head of Human Capital, told The Herald yesterday that the Harare giants took the drastic decisions in order to bring back order and stability as the working environment in the Glamour Boys technical department as well as the dressing room had become toxic and divisive.
This comes as allegations of back-biting and divisions had rocked the DeMbare technical department. It was also claimed Maruwa had lost control of the dressing room while indiscipline had taken hold in the camp.
Murape and team manager Chihoro are due to be summoned for a disciplinary hearing, with chances high the duo could also be axed for “gross misconduct”.
“There have been complaints over the chaos in the dressing room. The captains also brought this issue up and after some careful thought we discovered the team was not progressing because of these issues.
“We considered a lot of things and came to the conclusion that if we keep on moving like this then we are not going anywhere as a club in terms of fighting for the silverware this season.
“So what we are trying to do here is to cleanse the team of all these ills, the divisions, the indiscipline, the inconsistent results and something as serious as suspected match-fixing.
“We are still investigating this but we have some indicators that such shenanigans could have been taking place to the detriment of the team. What we want at Dynamos is stability. I am hopeful we will see a different Dynamos after this.
“We will talk to the players and inform them of the developments before the end of the week,” said Chawonza.
Dynamos are celebrating their 60th anniversary this year and had targeted a piece of silverware to put the icing on the cake.
But they have lacked consistency and are currently trailing log leaders Highlanders by nine points, as the second round of the Castle Lager Premiership begins.
DeMbare have also set eyes on winning the elusive Chibuku Super Cup for the first time and will begin their campaign this Saturday against Simba Bhora at Barbourfields.
However, there have been concerns that the decision to tamper with the technical team at this stage could derail their overall campaign.
Maruwa, who earlier this season survived a two-match ultimatum was given a more challenging five-match demand to collect maximum points in the first five matches of the second round matches.
But a 0-0 draw with Hwange last Sunday in the first match of the survival series proved to be the last straw, as it appears the DeMbare leadership had long lost faith in the former Black Rhinos man.
Chawonza said it was increasingly becoming difficult to believe Maruwa would lead the team to the Promised Land because of the inconsistencies in results.
Maruwas signed a performance-based contract with the Glamour Boys which state that;
“(a) This Contract is performance based and shall remain so,
“(b) Performance target for 2023 is winning the Castle Lager League Championship and as such this forms your fulcrum key performance output. Winning any knock-out silverware during the season shall be considered as a credit towards your performance assessment.
“(c) Periodic reviews will be conducted as determined by the club to keep track of the attainability or non-thereof of the key performance output.”
Based on this, Maruwa was this season expected to deliver the title, which Dynamos last won in 2014. But after periodic reviews, the DeMbare executive had relented a bit.
“Maruwa signed this contract with the previous executive and we also believed it was possible because of the investments made in this team.
“We inherited almost everything that our predecessors left — the targets, the debts and all. But we had periodic reviews where we decided to be a bit lenient and agreed that we collect at least eight to 10 points in every five games so that we finish in a respectable position.
“But that has not been happening. It was mainly because of the divisions in the technical department, where some members were no longer talking to each other, and the players were getting affected by that as well.
“Then we would also hear allegations of juju and players getting punished for not playing along. Then there were also allegations of continuous fighting between the assistant coach and the players.
“It was all getting out of hand. So, there is no way we are rocking the ship. It’s already in troubled seas and interventions were needed,” said Chawonza.
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