Highlanders take stock of difficult season

Lovemore Dube, Zimpapers Sports Hub

HIGHLANDERS bona fide members meet today for yet another annual general meeting, with the club’s bruising 2025 season and a ballooning debt figure expected to collide in one room.

Chairman Kenneth Mhlophe’s report is set to be the headline item as Bosso take stock of a campaign that ended with them 11th on the Castle Lager Premiership table, a finish that still feels too close to danger for a club that measures itself in trophies and tradition.

The season never truly settled. Highlanders were second to MWOS after six matches, but the slide began early, and by Matchday 17 they were already living in ninth for long spells. By the final stretch, Bosso were staring at a relegation scrap, forced into survival mode instead of planning for progress.

A draw against neighbours Chicken Inn in the last match of the season kept both clubs alive, but it also underlined how far Highlanders had fallen. Instead of closing the year with momentum, they limped over the line, then went straight back into another rebuild.

The anger from the stands was mainly about what members watched every week. Highlanders lacked quality on the pitch, lacked bite in key moments, and lacked the depth to recover when form dipped, leaving the club exposed whenever pressure rose.

That is the backdrop to the club’s biggest move going into 2026, the appointment of former Warriors captain Benjani Mwaruwari, a coach the club believes brings a higher level of exposure and standards after playing abroad and competing in elite environments.

Mwaruwari played for Manchester City and Portsmouth in the English Premiership.

Bosso have also leaned into sponsorship again, accepting financial backing from businessman Wicknell Chivayo to secure Mwaruwari’s package and to provide a budget for player recruitment. For a club that has often tried to survive on pride and gate takings, the money changes the conversation, and it will change the expectations too.

The technical team is also being framed as a return to “Bosso people.” Mwaruwari and Mkhokheli Dube, both former Highlanders players, are set to lead the dressing room, a deliberate attempt to restore the club’s identity after seasons of frustration and drift.

Mwaruwari is a product of the Highlanders junior project.

Members are also expected to give a nod to new board member responsible for finance Nkani Khoza and the executive, at a time when Highlanders’ books have become as much of a talking point as the team sheet.

In the past two seasons, auditors raised red flags over how the club’s finances were being handled, turning accountability into a running fight that has followed the club from one meeting to the next. This time, the mood is different, not because the debt has vanished, but because the club claims systems have tightened, courtesy of members’ seeing value in Khoza’s candidature.

The figure that will hang over today’s meeting is stark. Highlanders are said to be more than US$450 000 in the red, a reality that explains why every promise of funding now lands with relief and hope.

Chivayo’s name will come up repeatedly, not just because he is paying the coach’s salary and supporting recruitment, but because of the scale of what he has already put in. He gave Highlanders US$500  000 in the last six months of last year, part of the US$1 million pledge he made in honour of the late Vice-President John Nkomo, his uncle and a devoted Bosso follower.

With that support in place, Bosso members will go into the 2026 season hopeful of a change in fortunes.
The Highlanders landscape is expected to move from survival talk back to competing talk in 2026, a year the club is celebrating 100 years and exactly two decades after the last league title.
Another major agenda item will be the club’s centenary celebrations, with board chairman Luke Mnkandla expected to update members on plans that began late last year with a launch and a business breakfast meeting.

Highlanders are marking 100 years since their founding in Makokoba by grandsons of King Lobengula, Albert and Rhodes Khumalo, alongside their contemporaries, the Ngcebetsha and Hlabangana brothers.

For a club that sells identity as much as results, the centenary is not just a celebration, it is a statement of what Bosso believe they are.

Activities are lined up throughout the year, and the club will again lean on its governance culture to frame today’s meeting.

Highlanders remain one of the few Premiership sides whose constitution demands representation by a registered law firm and auditors, and whose AGM is built around reports that can be questioned and debated by members.

The promise is renewed confidence, but the reality is that Highlanders have heard promises before. Last year’s pre-season was poor, recruitment was thin, and the club entered another campaign without the resources to compete properly.

This time, Bosso are saying the situation is better, the coach is in place, and the plan is clearer.
Today’s meeting will test whether the members believe it, and whether Highlanders can drift from a season of damage into a season of direction.