The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor
ON Tuesday 4 January 2022 while driving from the burial of legendary football administrator, Ndumiso Gumede, Ronald Moyo was to experience a bitter-sweet moment.
Still in the process of drying the tears of losing one of his mentors in football administration, he got the most exciting news that his wife was now in labour with their third child.
However, as he was coming from Inyathi, his wife had the enduring task of finding her way to the hospital, a husband’s worst nightmare as Ronald was not going to be by his wife’s side during this time.
This is just one of the many sacrifices, this 30-year-old ‘young man’ from koSigola, just on the outskirts of Bulawayo, has had to make for the country’s oldest football club.
For him the fact that his child was born on the day the legendary football administrator was laid to rest was a blessing.
Three months later, this blessing was to come to fruition as on 22 March, Ronald was to be appointed substantive Highlanders Football Club chief executive officer, the youngest CEO in the country’s football history to hold such a position.
This following on the footsteps of Gumz, who in 1978 became the youngest chairperson to lead a football club in the country.
For the young man, who in his home area is known as Roland Bruce Moyo, but because of an error at the registry offices, that was only discovered when he was preparing to write his Grade Seven examinations, he has had to go by the name Ronald Moyo to the rest of the world.
Sunday News Online News Editor, Vusumuzi Dube (VD) had a sit down with Ronald (RM) to get to know him better.
VD: Most people know Ronald Moyo, the Highlanders Football Club spokesperson now you are the CEO, may you tell us more about Ronald the person?
RM: Ronald Moyo is a young man who was born on 16 May 1991. I was born in Lupane where my mother had visited her sister.
Fortunately, she had to deliver in Lupane, she quickly came back to our actual home KoSigola just two kilometres from Llewellin (Lookout Masuku) Barracks and about 27 kilometres from Bulawayo.
I attended Sigola Primary School and for my High School I went to Sihlengeni. Some people do not even know that where I come from, they do not even know that I am Ronald, they call me Bruce or Roland.
Roland being my original name that I was given by my parents. It so happened that when they went for my birth registration, there was a mistake with the spelling of my name which led to Ronald. It is a mistake that we discovered when I was in Grade Seven, when I was writing my exams.
The name Bruce which is the most common from where I come from, is not on my birth certificate, it is a name that was given to me by my late maternal grandfather.
He gave me the name when I was growing up and started walking, the narrative was that I used to walk around holding a plastic ball (umphepha), I was told that I was even lighter, in complexion, during that time.
Then him being a Highlanders fan, he likened my actions to Bruce Grobbelaar, saying I was going to be a great goal keeper for Highlanders.
My mother also learnt at Sihlengeni Secondary School, where she was very active in sports, especially netball and she did very well in her academics. She actually left a record there in terms of passing, she was also a head girl at the school.
So, I went to the same school feeling a little bit challenged and it was overwhelming as I thought I couldn’t achieve what she had achieved.
Rightfully so, I failed to break those records because the time I wrote the exams, in 2008, things were difficult, I was learning only four subjects, the subject that I added which I was not doing was literature.
I would read novels by myself because we were left alone to read novels at Form Three. In that stream, only five of us passed, one lady and four gentlemen, the name of the lady was Trisha Mnkandla who used to give me a nightmare since primary school.
VD: What of your high schooling, where did you do that?
RM: My grandfather moved me to Induna Barracks that is where I did my A-levels. It was a difficult experience coming across students who passed with flying colours.
I never got five points until the final exams, I was one of the lowest ranked students, but I still had the conviction that I will pass.
I was doing Sociology, History and Literature, fortunately I came out as one of the best students with twelve points together with my best friend Perfect Madzima and our head boy Wilbert Frank Ndlovu.
After A-level I went for temporally teaching at Makhokhomba in Nyamandlovu. By then there was no social media so I used to miss out a lot and it was hard for me to even access the newspaper so I missed my deadline for my application at UZ.
I ended up at MSU where I applied and got a place to study for a degree in Media and Society Studies and in my second year I had already contributed and written some articles for some local newspapers.
I got my internship at Southern Eye, that is where my passion for football administration developed. I got into the sports desk where my passion grew even more.
VD: Before you get into sports administration, tell us, when did you start supporting Highlanders?
RM: The family where I grew up in was a Highlanders family. So, I got that curiosity of saying what is it about Highlanders.
I grew up knowing that on Sundays, the radio will be on, and during those years Highlanders was winning a lot of matches I fell in love with Highlanders.
There was a time when I became an AmaZulu footballer because I went for trials there, but that love for Highlanders and growing up in a culture where Highlanders, Soul brothers and Lovemore Majaivana where the order of the day; that is the kind of set up I grew up in.
For me, the love for Highlanders grew naturally. I can simply say I’ve been a Highlanders fan since Grade One.
VD: Now tell us about Ronald Moyo the football administrator
RM: My passion for football administration started when I was an intern, where I was actually deployed at the sports desk where I interacted with a lot of other football administrators.
In order for you to be a good journalist you have to research a lot that’s where I came across individuals like the late Ndumiso Gumede, who became the chairman of Highlanders at 33, and told myself that I want to be like this guy
When I went back to school, to give credit to my lecturer who supervised me, Dr Lyton Ncube, he knew me from a personal perspective.
When we were asked to submit our topics for dissertation, I had three topics, the other ones were about political communication then he said for you, I am imposing this topic, which was one to do with sports.
It was during the time where Highlanders was struggling to beat Dynamos, the whole idea was to look at how the Chronicle and the Herald were covering this, to be specific the kind of discourse being used by the two publications.
The research exposed me a lot to football, it required me to read a lot of literature on football administration arrivals and how clubs make money in particular.
What was more interesting was that the most celebrated EL Classico resembled the rivalry of Highlanders and Dynamos. That was the turning moment for me that made me become convinced that this is what I want.
VD: Then from there, how did you get into actual football administration?
RM: Soon after I finished my undergraduate degree, I got attached to Bantu Rovers I worked with the likes of Wilbert Sibanda, Methembe Ndlovu as the communications officer of the team.
So, I am one person who likes growing, that is where my passion even grew more. We had people like Wilbert, who will give you responsibilities outside your desk maybe because of the capacity that they see in you.
The following year I was fortunate enough to join Highlanders Football Club as the communications and media officer.
It was such a good experience and for me that was a dream job. My family has been very supportive. I actually, at the same time, got an offer at a certain NGO and it was tempting, but because of the love for Highlanders and the future and the direction that I had already chosen.
VD: Now tell us of your road to becoming the CEO?
RM: It was an interesting experience. Highlanders is a very big institution with a lot of pressure. But I might say, the Highlanders that you have been reading about and the Highlanders, especially from an internal perspective, are two different worlds.
It is actually one big loving family. In a big family, people might have differences in views, but the reception and the support that I got for me to grow was amazing.
We were much of a family more than colleagues. For one to grow you need a conducive environment so it was a very conducive environment.
I must credit the former CEO Nhlanhla Dube who is one guy who believed in me a lot, he would call me every day for diaries, we would discuss a lot of things; the conversations would not end without learning a new thing that is his nature. He is one person who would give you books to go and read.
When it was time for me to become the acting CEO, I saw it as a huge responsibility because I think sometimes it is better to wait until you’re ready for certain positions.
But I had to look back and say, I have been in football administration for five years, and if I went for a college degree for four years, and a masters degree for two years, do I need more than five years to learn football administration yet I have been practicing football administration with the best football club in the country with the best football administrators in the country, so I said let me just take this opportunity.
I never imagined that there is going to be an opportunity for me to become the substantive CEO but for me the starting point was to act and to give the club what I was capable of giving so I did that during my acting time. I was asked to submit my CV, it meant that there was something good that they were seeing in me.
I submitted then I was called for interviews. Highlanders has got a very good strategic plan that was put in place in 2020 that we are still trying to implement.
But for me where I stood, I thought I was the right person because I was there when that document was made. I was there when we went for a strategic business plan that is where my confidence grew.
VD: Now that you are at the helm of a big institution what is your vision as the CEO?
RM: From an administrative perspective, Highlanders is a collective team work. I have understood that sometimes as an individual you might have your own personal vision, but the vision of the institution takes precedence over everything.
I have tried to align my vision to the vision of the institution itself where we are looking forward to explore other possibilities where we want to go beyond football and inspire generations.
My vision is to modernise the club because when you look at other clubs, we look at them as the embodiment as how football clubs should be run.
For me, the immediate challenge is that I should drive that vision of modernising this institution, which I think falls better in the greater vision of the institution.
My vision is to mobilise the secretariat. For instance, to mobilise fans towards the vision where we move beyond football and try and open other revenue streams outside just gate takings and it is possible so that the institution sustains itself.
Even though we are operating under harsh economic situations, as a leader it is not about finding the problem, but it is about finding the solution.
I am hungry for a Highlanders that is not only celebrated here in Zimbabwe, I am hungry for a Highlanders that also competes in Africa and also known internationally.
It is a possible job because they are people who came before us and they did a very fantastic job during their different epochs. It speaks volumes that the institution was established in 1926, but it is still standing and still competing.
VD: There has been talk that Ronald is too young for the job of CEO, what is your reaction to these sentiments and are you under pressure to deliver?
RM: I am not even under pressure. It is not an issue of age, but it is an issue of ability. If I fail, I would have failed because of my incapability not because of my age.
I have used the example of the late football administrator Ndumiso Gumede, he was entrusted to run this club with the responsibility of a chairman at the age of 33. He was relatively young.
With all respect at 30, I am no longer young because being realistic the life expectancy now will mean that we will always wait forever.
For me, what I have been dreaming of now is that even the next CEO who is going to come and take over from me must be maybe 25. My conclusion is that I am old enough.
VD: As we conclude tell us about Ronald the family man?
RM: I am happily married and I was blessed with twin daughters in 2015, recently I was blessed with another baby girl at the beginning of this year.
The most painful story about my last born is that my wife had to find her own means to get to the hospital because when it happened I was actually on my way from the late Ndumiso Gumede’s funeral.
I am the only child from my mother’s side, then I have sisters from my father’s side. My kids are big Bosso supporters when they started talking I used to listen to a lot of Bosso songs so it got into them.
VD: Thanks CEO for taking time out of your busy schedule to entertain our questions
RM: Thank you for having me!
