Online Reporter
Tadious Manyepo
Zimpapers Sports Hub
CAPS United president Farai Jere says the club’s monthly salary bill is now US$100,000 but he is happy to bankroll it because funding the Green Machine is a pursuit of his passion.
The Harare businessman still insists that their mission is to win the Castle Lager Premiership title after they roped in veteran goalkeeper Washington Arubi into their ranks.
Arubi penned a two-year deal with the Green Machine as the Harare giants move to plug a gaping hole in their goalkeeping department which has been derailing their title push.
Arubi is coming in to replace the error-prone Wallace Magalane, who has been side-lined for his culpability after making a significant number of elementary, if not comical errors, which have spoiled CAPS United’s charge.
The Green Machine have now dropped, after leading the Premiership race with two points at one stage, to nine points behind champions Scottland.
Arubi will now be expected to bring his wealth of experience which he has gathered right from his days at Lancashire in the early 2000s to the 13 years he has spent playing in the South African top-flight league.
He was already on pre-season with Marumo Gallants in South Africa, with contract renewal talks on, when his agency picked that Makepekepe had axed Magalane on Sunday.
“This move for Arubi was a long time coming. We literally sealed it before the AFCON finals in Morocco,” revealed Jere.
“He was waiting for us to make the move because I had messages from him when he texted that he wanted to come back home from South Africa and be at CAPS United.
“When his agent realised that we had sidelined Magalane, they called me and we arranged for him to fly in today for the signing. Here he is.
“I am happy to confirm that Arubi is now a CAPS United player after signing a two-year deal with us.
“We are here to win the championship and Arubi’s coming is a bold move by the CAPS United leadership to bring smiles to the millions of CAPS United fans out there.”
Jere said Magalane’s latest, in a catalogue of howlers, wasn’t the final nail on the coffin but rather his refusal to come back into the match after the break.
“We will continue giving Magalane his salaries but what he did on Sunday was unacceptable.
“After making that error, he then refused to come back from the break even when the coach (Takesure Chiragwi) and the players convinced him to do so.
“The coach ended up taking an injured player (Stephen Kwaku) because Magalane had refused.
“It raises the emotions. You know, you’re playing with someone’s passion.”
Jere said football was his passion.
“Football is my passion. If you ask me how much I’ve put into this team over the years, it actually runs into millions of dollars.
“You know how much we spend every day? You don’t even know how much we spend here.
“You don’t know how much in salaries is paid to those players every month. “CAPS United’s salary bill is $100,000 US dollars.
“If anyone is telling you stories that the boys are not being paid, they are wrong. Those boys are getting paid every month. I’m talking about $100,000 US dollars.
“That’s my salary bill — I’m paying for my passion. I enjoy it. I love it. And I’ll look back and I don’t even regret whatever investment I have put into football, because that’s my passion.
“I’m paying for this because I want to be happy. I want the CAPS United family to be happy. If those fans are happy, I’m very happy.”
For Arubi, the move to CAPS United underlines his legendary status as he is set to become the first goalkeeper to have played for all the traditional Big Three —Highlanders, Dynamos and CAPS United.
He could have been the second goalkeeper to play for all the three after Munyaradzi Diya but the Hardrock goalkeepers’ coach only registered but never got to play for Makepekepe, having already featured for the other two giants.
“It’s really a good feeling and I am ready for the job at hand,” said Arubi.
“I am happy to be joining CAPS United and it’s a fulfilment of a dream.
“We talked about it with the president Farai Jere sometime ago and today I am happy.”
