Saints reject Bafa offer

Sports Correspondent
FORMER Premiership champions, Zimbabwe Saints were offered a slot in the Bulawayo Amateur Football Association (Bafa) to enable them to kick start their return to competitive football, but rejected it. Saints are in the doldrums following their expulsion from Zifa Southern Region Division One early last year following when they failed to pay affiliation fees and debts owed Zifa in excess of $5 000.

Although Chikwata are making plans to return to playing football this year, the club is still to secure funds which will determine where they will be playing.

A reconstitution of the club’s administration saw the appointment of the board of trustees led by Vincent Pamire as chairman.
In a letter dated 8 December, Bafa chairman Chris Mtungwazi said the absence of Saints at any level of football was too hard to fathom hence his association’s decision to extend the invitation to the club to start their revival in Bafa.

“Zimbabwe Saints FC is one of the oldest teams in Zimbabwe. Its impact on Zimbabwean football in the past decades cannot be ignored. Neither can its absence at any level. By joining Bafa as a transitional league, I am confident that it will be the launch pad for greater achievements for your team,” wrote Mtungwazi, in a letter addressed to Martin Mabvira.

Adding the minimal expenses associated with playing in the Bafa league would be ideal for Saints who were in financial difficulties.
Mtungwazi said by playing in Bafa, Saints would be afforded the opportunity to reconnect with its “huge grassroots support”.

“This ground zero approach may present you with the opportunity to build the technical, financial and administrative critical mass that your team may need for its ascendance back to the top.

“At the end of the day, Zimbabwean football is poorer without the presence of your team at any level, hence our invitation to you,” Mtungwazi wrote.
However, Pamire said they could not take up the offer because Bafa was a social league and would rather consider going to the Zifa junior league.

“It was a suggestion that was thrown around for consideration but as a football administrator, I wouldn’t go to Bafa because it is social soccer league. I believe going into the Zifa junior league would be much better because it is more competitive and we can develop players from there,” said Pamire.

Mtungwazi, however, said it was sad that Saints, a once formidable side in the country was not kicking the ball at any level.
“Look, a football club is a football club because it will be playing football. When a football club doesn’t have a team then something is very wrong. We were just offering them a home in the meantime after we had discussions with some of their members.

“They can look down upon Bafa at their own peril. One of our teams, BCC Golden Stars will this year be fighting for a place in the Premiership, and yet only three years back they were a fully-fledged Bafa side.

“Saints can rise back to the top but what is worrying is that they are not playing soccer at the moment and from the achievements of BCC it clear they can use Bafa as a spring board to the Premiership,” he said.

Meanwhile, Pamire confirmed there was now only one board operating at Chikwata following a meeting held at a city hotel last month, saying it was high time normalcy returned at the club.

Pamire said the board of trustees was in charge of reviving Saints and any other structure will emerge from the reconstitution process.
“It is untenable that we have anyone becoming part of the executive without a mandate from members of the club who have valid membership. We set the fees and those present agreed to pay the monthly fees for them to get voting rights and other benefits. We are then going to hold elections in the near future that will see a substantive executive leading the club back to its former glory,” he said.

The interim executive led by former player Gibson Homela was disbanded with the board of trustees now in charge.
Pamire accused some people of trying to sow confusion and division within the club when they did not have the mandate from members with their interest being to allocate themselves positions adding that he was not at the club to stay but had only agreed to come back due to the sad state of affairs at the club.
He said once the elections were conducted he will make way for the new executive.