Online Reporter
Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
MUTARE-BASED Castle Lager Premier Soccer League club, Manica Diamonds face TelOne, Highlanders, Bulawayo Chiefs, Dynamos and MWOS in their final matches of the 2026 season.
The club is rooted at the bottom of the table with 19 points from a possible 87 points after 29 rounds.
Mathematically, the most Manica Diamonds can achieve is 34 points, a total that could see the club avoid relegation.
Whether that is practical remains in question.
Like many of the club’s supporters, founding secretary general, Sugar Chagonda, is sceptical about the team’s chances of survival.
Manica Diamonds had a disastrous start to the 2026 season. Confusion that followed the change in ownership from Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) to Evans Kamombo and George Padhule, worsened the situation for the club, nicknamed the Gem Boys.
The club’s fall continued when Kamombo and Padhule severed ties, leaving Agrum Company owner, Kamombo, as the sole owner.
The club became the talk of the football fraternity for the wrong reasons as the new owners hired and fired employees, creating a revolving-door culture at what was once a professionally run club.
Donald ‘Azzurrie’ Manhende, Tapiwa Mbidzo, Nyasha Kadenge, Clinton Matiza, Themba Ndlovu, Tafadzwa Mashiri, Clifton Kadurira, Jeffrey Takunda, Thembinkosi Sibanda, Benedict Sithole, Jonathan Zvaita, Chasten Ngondonga, Chitukutuku, Patrick Mandizha, Artwell Gumiso, Clement Saunyama and Expense Chitukutuku, are among those who worked for Manica Diamonds as technical or administrative staff, and were dismissed in the five months since the club changed ownership.
From a media perspective, covering each dismissal at Manica Diamonds became difficult because two or three people were dismissed each week.
By the time of publication, the news was outdated as another dismissal would have occurred.
Chagonda, now chief executive of national broadcaster, ZBC, after leaving ZCDC, said he laments the state of the club he helped form.
In a podcast interview with this reporter, Wednesday morning, Chagonda chronicled the club’s formation:
“I am the founding secretary general of Manica Diamonds Football Club. I was part of the intimate process that gave birth to this football project. When I joined ZCDC at the end of 2017, owning a football club was a big and audacious goal for the company. There are two names that we can’t afford to ignore when we discuss the formation of Manica Diamonds FC.
“The first one is the then ZCDC CEO, Morris Mpofu and Newton Demba, who was the supply chain executive for the diamond miner. The football club was formed as part of the ZCDC corporate social responsibility projects under the Sports and Recreation Cluster to advance the corporate brand visibility.
“So it was a purely public relations strategic effort. With the support of Mpofu, we managed to convince the then ZCDC Board of Directors to bankroll the project. Together with Demba, we did the needful in terms of documentation for the club from writing the constitution to setting up of the structures. In writing the constitution, the founding principle was to make the club a community project. This was to be reflected in the constitution and there were some positions that we reserved for members of the community and general football fraternity for example the chairman’s post and two committee members.
“Positions like vice-chairman, secretary general and treasurer-general were to be retained by ZCDC staffers to protect the interest of the sponsor. In our inaugural set-up, we appointed former football referee and educationist, Masimba Chihowa to be chairman and veteran administrator, Owen Sango to run our office in Mutare. Self-proclaimed football doctor, Luke Masomere was appointed head of the technical team, deputised by Johannes Nhumwa, the Dutch Mentor. Our first season was in 2018 when we played in the Eastern Region Division One. We never lost a match, but just drew four matches to win automatic promotion into the Premier Soccer League.
“During my tenure as the club SG, challenges were there, yes, but they were not so pronounced. Before the start of every season we would make sure that it was proceeded by strategic planning. We would craft our strategic plan for the season and the budget. Nothing was happening by chance or fortuitous. ZCDC would then avail the financial resources. This model worked very well especially when the sponsoring company was stable and operating profitably. However, whenever ZCDC would experience some cash flow challenges, the club would naturally catch the cold.
“For me, this was a wake-up call that we needed a sustainable model. We started to advocate for the establishment of some business under Manica Diamonds and the long term plan was to wean it off ZCDC. However, this process was very slow and by the time I left it had not gathered pace and whatever happened thereafter I am not privy to that information,” said Chagonda.
The ZBC chief executive expressed pain at the club’s current state.
“My heart bleeds when I look at where Manica Diamonds is right now. Sitting at the bottom of the log is something that I never expected Manica Diamonds would one day endure.
“We attained second position in PSL and our vision was to see this club win the title someday. Sadly, this is where we are, and I really wish the club well in its future endeavours, even if it means going to Division One, and fighting its way back to PSL,” he said.
Asked about details of the deal that saw Manica Diamonds change ownership and whether ZCDC could have continued sponsoring the club, Chagonda said: “It is unfortunate that these things happened during my last days at ZCDC so I do not have full information about what really transpired, especially on the actual details of the deal. But like what I said before, the business project idea that we wanted to form for the club was aimed at sustainability because this idea of clubs depending on finances from a given sponsor is just not sustainable. When the sponsor sneezes, the club catches the cold.”
On professional management of the club during his tenure, Chagonda said: “We managed to run the club professionally because everyone involved knew what their roles were.
“It was not like one would go to sleep as chairman and wake up as the club coach. No! We were authorities at the club, but never at one point did we influence team selection. Good corporate governance is the cornerstone of sound football club management.”
Watch full video on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCmyFFBNQSM
