Marere’s sorry tale

Zimbabwe international goalkeeper Washington Arubi, by far the best player in the Glamour Boys’ team last year, has also told his advisors that he will not accept a move back to DeMbare this year because he still remains frustrated by broken promises.

The two players, who signed for Highfield United this week, were available on the transfer market with the Glamour Boys, who registered them for their Champions League campaign, having the greenlight to bid for their services along with other clubs interested in them.
Dynamos secretary-general Oliver Manyau said on Thursday that the two players would feature for Dynamos this year, despite signing three-year contracts at Highfield United, because of a deal between the Harare giants and the Division One club.

Although both players have decided, for the mean time, to keep their silence on the unfolding drama, The Herald can reveal today that while the management at Highfield United are ready to let Marere and Arubi play for Dynamos this season, on loan, the players have said they are not willing to go back to the Glamour Boys for now.

Highfield United, whose chairman is Zifa Junior Football leader Zivanayi “Zifa” Chiyangwa and are a football franchise wholly owned by Harare firm Twalumba Holdings, have been trying not to antagonise the Dynamos’ camp and believe that releasing Marere and Arubi to the Glamour Boys this year will help cool the tempers.

The two players are key to Dynamos’ Champions League campaign.
But impeccable sources told this newspaper last night that Marere and Arubi have turned down their management team’s proposal to go back and play for Dynamos for this season, as part of a loan deal, because of nightmares from the past season.

“The management team at Highfield United is conscious of the fact that there exists a good working relationship between their holding company Twalumba and Dynamos and they have been appraised of the way the company also helped DeMbare during their Champions League campaign last year,” said the sources.

“Basically, the route they have been trying to take is to ensure that they don’t strain that relationship and try and send a signal that this is all an attempt to weaken Dynamos and that is why there has been this initiative that the two players be released to play for Dynamos this season as part of a loan agreement.
“It’s all part of a balancing act in a small football and business community where all the parties generally end up needing one another and the Highfield United executive have no problem with letting the two players go back and continue playing for Dynamos for this year.
“The sticking point, right now, is that the players feel that they need some time to recover from what they went through last season when they were at Dynamos and they believe their game can only get better if they play elsewhere right now.”

Marere, the sources said, was still haunted by an ugly incident last year when he was pushed out of a house he was renting because his employers, Dynamos, had failed to raise money to pay for his rentals.
“The depressing thing about that incident was that Benji was not there when it happened and his pregnant wife was the one who was pushed out of the rented premises,” said the sources.
“It was at that point that Benji must have decided that enough was enough and this was certainly not the way to continue because if football, which is his profession, could not take care of his family needs, then there was no point in playing it.

“He was affected by that very much and public relations stuff was pushed through to the media, when he did not play for Dynamos in the BancABC Sup8r Cup final, that he was out of the country but the truth is that he felt that he did not have the right mental state at that moment to play.
“It was all related to that incident when his pregnant wife was pushed out of that rented home and it was affecting him badly and, in the week leading to the cup final, he just broke down and decided that it would be in the best interest of the team if he didn’t play because he wasn’t sure he would give it his best shot.

“Benji is saying that while he has developed this love relationship with Dynamos over the past few years, he believes he needs time right now to be away from the team so that he can play football with a stable mind and that is why he feels it will not be in his best interests for him to go back there.”

Warriors’ goalkeeper Arubi became the darling of the Dynamos fans who presented him with cash gifts, after the end of each game, as he turned on brilliant spells between the posts in the Glamour Boys’ chase for the league championship.
Sadly his heroics were not enough as Dynamos were beaten into second place by champions Motor Action who grabbed the ultimate prize on the domestic football scene by virtue of their superior goal difference.

Arubi’s contract with Dynamos ended on December 31 last year and last week he told The Herald that he would be weighing his options, saying he needed time to rest after a grueling season, before making the right decision.
However, this week Arubi signed for Highfield United and, while there was a chance for him to be loaned to Dynamos for the Champions League, the goalkeeper also wants more time away from the Glamour Boys.

“Washington’s case is different from Benji in that it has not been influenced by one personal issue that really affected him and haunted him for a long time,” said the sources.
“Washington was badly affected by the club’s failure to win the league championship after he had put so much into the game and he believes that they paid a big price for the problems that rocked their camp.
“You know all those cases where the players had to go on strike, and did not train, because they were yet to be paid their dues, and he feels that was when they lost the battle and it appears that he needed the league championship winners’ medal very much.

“Washington feels that he should play for another team this season, which is not Dynamos, so that he can also recover his senses because he is afraid of plunging into those same problems again when the season starts.”

Arubi turned himself into the Warriors’ first-choice goalkeeper last year and was clearly the outstanding player on the domestic scene and would have been voted the Soccer Star of the Year had it not been for a controversial decision to disqualify him by the football writers.
Marere and Arubi remain on the market but chances are now higher that they will play for Black Mambas this season if they are not signed by a foreign team before the start of the campaign.
“Nothing has changed except to say that the players don’t want to play for Dynamos this season and, if they don’t get a foreign club, chances are high that they will be at Mambas,” said the sources.