The Sunday News
Tawengwa Carlos Zidya
AS a Highlanders Football Club life card carrying member, my heart bleeds when people are jostling for positions in the upcoming elections instead of finding a solution to rescue the club from its ballooning debt.
People are talking of positions but not addressing the real problem at the club. What matters is finance to run the affairs of the club. We have changed coaches, players and executive members but the debt is always there and it keeps ballooning. The club has been in debt for over 15 years if my memory serves me right. Others have given ideas on how to solve the problem but nothing has been done.
I believe it’s time to call a spade a spade. We need fresh and energetic leaders who are business minded to run Highlanders. We need leaders who can re-evaluate the so-called creditors so that we are certain on our debts. Let’s have leaders who talk the value of Highlanders Football Club and stop fighting among ourselves at the expense of the team.
Let’s have unity and support who ever has been elected. We need the spirit of forgiveness and ensure the Bosso brand wins not individual egos. The club should revive the junior policy. Our Club house has a training ground and that can be used by juniors and even the first team once boreholes have been erected to water the fields and make them green all year round. This will help cut costs of hiring council or school grounds for training.
Board members must desist from imposing and choosing candidates for us. They should stop protecting some people in office who are no longer wanted by club members. As card holders, we are adults and we know what we want for the good of our club. We certainly need former players to come to the fold and play a key role in the revival of the club. Big clubs the world over use their former players in various positions because they know the culture of the club and are also brand ambassadors. The time of experiments with green horns in key leadership positions should stop. We need tried and tasted football people to take our club back to glory days. Let’s come together with our former players and administrators, Highlanders is big enough to accommodate all of us and together we will conquer.
I also believe the problem we have now comes from having some incompetent people in the executive who are only after positions without knowing what it means to lead a football giant like Highlanders. Players are leaving the club not because they hate Highlanders but because their grievances are not being looked at by the executive. We need people who have the welfare of the players at heart. We are also failing to attract sponsorship because of the leadership that does not inspire confidence to the business world.
Back in the day, fans used to fill up Barbourfields stadium and that money was used to run the club even at a time when there was no sponsor, but when petty politics and factions started, our fortunes took a negative direction and the team started losing and fans also started to stay at home and not come to watch the team. It’s time we put our house in order with able leaders who have a track record in football so that we start to think “football”, and attract the right players and also come up with a vibrate junior policy that will ensure that there is a constant supply of quality players into the first team. Ayisoze ibulawe!
The writer is a card carrying Highlanders member and writes in his personal capacity.
