The Sunday News
FORMER Premier Soccer League champions Zimbabwe Saints are continuing with their push for a return to playing football after being booted out of the Zifa Southern Region early this year for failing to pay the mandatory fees.
The club’s members met on Thursday evening at Rainbow Hotel where it was emphasised the club should come up with a clean register of members who would be responsible for drafting a new constitution.
Board of trustees secretary Tawanda Ruzive said they had also decided to dissolve the executive committee that was headed by Gibson Homela to ensure there only remains one centre of power in the run-up to the restructuring of the club.
He said no one had been paying membership fees hence all members were requested to cough up so they could actively participate in the club’s activities.
“We set the membership fee at $120 and five people paid on that day and we are hopeful more people will be coming forward to renew their membership while we also welcome new members. We are starting afresh hence even life members have to pay this amount to ensure the club has some funds in its coffers,” said Ruzive.
“We also resolved to dissolve the committee led by Homela while we remain with the board of trustees to ensure there is only one centre of power. This is the board that will lead us in crafting a new constitution and also in our charge of returning to the pitch next year.”
Saints’ board of trustees is led by former Zifa vice-president Vincent Pamire.
Ruzive said they are working on returning to Division One or making a charge at the Premiership through securing a franchise.
He said a team of Harare businessmen have offered to buy a PSL franchise for Saints if there was one on the market.
“Pamire and former chairman, Felix Dzumbunu will be heading to Harare early next year to meet the businessmen who showed interest in assisting us secure a franchise and they will report back at a meeting scheduled for 16 January.
“We have also appointed Sugar Muguyo as technical director and will work with the technical committee on seeing the best approach we can take regarding where Saints will play next year,” he said.
Despite boasting an illustrious past, Chauya Chikwata as the club was affectionately known, has in the recent past fallen on hard times with no income to finance the activities of the club while internal squabbles over the running of the club had fuelled the demise of the once great side.
The team was kicked out of the Zifa Southern Region Division One league following failure to pay affiliation fees and owed Zifa in excess of $5 000.
The Pamire-led board of trustees was instituted in September with the mandate to oversee the revival of the club and also includes Dzumbunu, Winston Babbage, Ruzive, Never Nduru, Martin Mabvira, Roger Russell, Charles Chiponda, Godfrey Mashayanhaya, Musekiwa Kumbula and Nobert Sebastian.
