The Sunday News
Allan Foti, Sunday News Correspondent
HIGHLANDERS’ life member and benefactor, Kenneth Mhlophe has said he is ready to answer members’ calls to stand for the vacant chairman’s seat at the club’s elections next year.
Mhlophe revealed this during an exclusive interview with Sunday News Sport last Friday. Mhlophe said while he is yet to decide whether or not to stand for the chairmanship, he was willing to consider it if members nominate him or call upon him to step in. He said he had identified several critical issues that need to be addressed by the incoming chairman.
“To be honest I have not decided whether or not to stand for the chairmanship, but I am a life member at Highlanders and have an obligation to work for the club. So if the club’s members call upon me I will be obliged to consider their calls,” Mhlophe told Sunday News Sport.
The retired army colonel said he was worried about Bosso’s leadership’s failure to address existing problems and put systems in place to ensure the problems are not recurrent.
“The club is facing a lot of problems that the current leadership has failed to address. The most urgent issue is the mounting debt.”
“In my opinion, the debt has not been manageable because of a lack of sustainable systems that govern the club’s finances. There is unrestrained lack of financial discipline which has led to the leadership failing to come up with viable plan to alleviate the ever-growing debt,” he said.
Mhlophe said the club’s leadership lacks respect for its members and supporters which has limited their ability to convince them to part with their money to aid the club.
He also said the club’s leadership needs to stop trying to manage the debt and instead focus on identifying the cause. The army officer said he believes that once the problem is identified it would become easier to find solutions.
Mhlophe also hit out at the leadership for allowing petty politics to scuttle any and all attempts by willing members to assist the club either financially or with workable solutions to problems.
“Our biggest problem as a club is that we are unable to stop the petty politics that make our leadership unable to accept assistance from willing and able members,” Mhlophe revealed.
He went on to urge the Highlanders to elect a strong candidate in the mould of the late chairman, retired colonel James Mangwana-Tshuma.
“As members we need to revisit the calibre of chairpersons we elect. We need a chairman with as strong a personality as the late James Mangwana-Tshuma,” said Mhlophe.
He added that the club needs an executive that is able to stand by its decisions whether right or wrong.
Other issues he said needed to be attended to were the poor public relations record the club has and the misconception that only a football person qualifies to be the club’s chief executive. He said in his opinion, a chief executive needed to be a person with proven track record in business administration and management with at least an MBA.
“The day we stop thinking that football people are the best candidates for the chief executive’s job then we will be well on our way to fixing some of our administrative shortcomings.”
He also highlighted the need to rid the club of incessant divisions in the club.
The businessman has often come to the aid of the club sponsoring the juniors as well as the women’s side.
