WEEKEND WHISPERS: Clubs must elect capable executive members

Dingilizwe Ntuli

SUCCESSFULLY run organisations can easily find themselves in the depths of a sudden crisis and oftentimes directors and the executive are blind to the risks they face. The question is do executive committee and board members have the skill sets required to hold their present positions?

Although the corporate sector has tried to have qualified and skilled people in boards and executive positions, the way our top football clubs are run is a joke at best. Probably this system of having card carrying members voting for the executive is the reason our football has remained stagnate.

The problem is that executive members are voted in on the basis of what they say and not their capability. Worse still, most of those voted in soon display their incapability, but they somehow quickly endearing themselves to card carrying members by their generosity in buying liquor instead of implementing their pre-election promises.

Our football clubs should be run as businesses, and not some social clubs. For example, when one is voted or appointed into the leadership structures of a club such as Highlanders or Dynamos, we expect those individuals to build the clubs’ brands and not bleed them financially or use them to stroke their alter egos.

The Highlanders’ treasurer reported at the last elective annual general meeting that the club was more than $500,000 in the red, but documents at hand lifted the veil on how the club’s financial woes accumulate.

As at February 22, 2016, the Highlanders Clubhouse was owed $959.94 by 26 individuals, who include serving executive members, former executive members, former players and even journalists.

It is actually difficult to look closely at the club’s finances and understand the rationale behind some of the decisions and recklessness displayed by those in charge.

The Clubhouse and Manwele Bar are entities run under the stewardship of the club’s vice-chairman to generate income for the club and it’s disturbing when individuals within and associated with Highlanders unashamedly add onto the club’s debt by running more debts on the already struggling entity.

The debts range from amounts as little as $3 per individual to $548.10, and although we can’t ascertain what they owe the Clubhouse money for, we can somehow hazard a guess that it’s either for liquor or meals served at the venue. We shall not expose the individuals to embarrassment by publishing their names, but would like to pick two names of interest we feel should not be appearing on the debtors’ list under any circumstances, the club’s vice-chairman Modern Ngwenya and an NE Gumede.

Ngwenya was only elected into office last month promising to use his business connections in Harare to help inject money into the club, but hardly a month after being voted in, he already owed the Clubhouse $16.80. For a man elected to turn the Clubhouse and Manwele Bar into profitability, Ngwenya has already displayed bad management principles. Yes, he is a businessman, who can easily repay that small amount, but it’s all about principle, which he has already fallen short of. How does he expect us to trust him to make the Clubhouse profitable when he condones indebtedness by joining the debtors’ list?

Ngwenya is a good singer, who has done well with his all-male vocal church group in Harare, but his management credentials are suspect based on the evidence of his first month in office.

Gumede is the single largest debtor of the Clubhouse owing $548.10. If this Gumede is the Highlanders’ chief executive officer, then God help Bosso because it’s unacceptable for a CEO to run a debt in his own debt-ridden entity.

In a nutshell, this self-interest, debt and flawed management system is due to lack of a moral compass at Highlanders. This is why many of the club’s financial problems can be traced back to the executive and they should be ashamed of themselves for the parts they have and are playing in dragging this great institution towards financial ruin.

Maybe all members of the executive and secretariat should undergo some training to acquire financial knowledge and how to forecast cash flows and value the club they lead instead of just managing people.