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Eddie Chikamhi Senior Sports Reporter
ZIFA have paid a glowing tribute to the late Warriors team manager and Highlanders legend, Ernest “Maphepha” Sibanda, who died in Bulawayo yesterday.
Sibanda, who was the team manager when the Warriors qualified for the 2006 AFCON finals in Egypt, succumbed to diabetes at Mater Dei Hospital.
He was 63-years-old.
“The Zimbabwe Football Association has learnt with great consternation of the passing of legend and administrator par excellence, Ernest ‘Maphepha’ Sibanda.
“Sibanda was a colourful player who starred for both Highlanders and CAPS United. He was always a cheerful, great, and hardworking leader, who executed his managerial duties with distinction,” said ZIFA spokesperson Xolisani Gwesela.
“Winning four consecutive championships as a team manager and one as an Executive Chairman of a big institution like Highlanders football club is clear testimony of his great abilities as a football leader.
“He was a great team manager of the Warriors who qualified for the 2006 CAF Africa Cup of Nations finals hosted by Egypt. Sibanda had a soft spot for young talent, hence many young players found it easy to work with him both at the national team and at Highlanders.
“He was a darling of fans from across the battle of Zimbabwe divide because he believed in sportsmanship and that foes on the pitch must celebrate together after the match.
“It is saddening that we continue to lose legends at a time that Zimbabwean football needs all its legends to join hands and contribute to the growth and development of the beautiful game.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends in this difficult moment of bereavement. May his dear soul rest in eternal peace.”
Highlanders chairman Johnfat Sibanda said Sibanda was a club legend, who will be sorely missed.
“The success story of Highlanders Football Club in the turn of the millennium and early 2000s is incomplete without mentioning his name. Above all, football is poorer without Sibanda,” he said.
The Bosso executive chairman said Sibanda, who was the last Highlanders chairman to win a league title in 2006, had set the benchmark in corridors of administration at the club.
“A great leader he was! A very charismatic and jovial character from his playing days in the 1980s, when he served as the club’s welfare manager between 1998 and 2002, to when he served as the club’s executive chairman and led highlanders to their last championship in 2006.
“While he made a name for himself through his exploits on the field of play, it is when he became the welfare manager where he won the hearts of many football followers, particularly Highlanders fans, through his magnetic character and his successful and trophy-laden managerial stint as the welfare manager and executive chairman between 1998 and 2006.
“During his managerial days, he was a manager par excellence for the club and the national team as he became a father figure to the players he managed,” said Sibanda.
At the time of his death, Maphepha Sibanda was also a board member at Premiership side, Bulawayo City.
Online Reporter