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Highlanders’ chief executive officer Nhlanhla Dube

Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter
BONAFIDE Highlanders members will converge at the clubhouse on Sunday for an extraordinary general meeting aimed at creating dialogue between club members and administrators.

Members attend the club’s mid-year meeting to review the club’s first half performance, receive the chairman and treasurer’s reports, and come up with decisions that will help keep the club afloat.

Highlanders’ chief executive officer Nhlanhla Dube said: “We haven’t received notices for any other business, so on the agenda is the chairman’s progress report, the treasurer’s report and an update on the constitutional report.”

The danger that may arise at the meeting, taking into account past gatherings, is that it may turn out to be just another talk show.

Some of the issues affecting the club’s operations might be overlooked at the expense of meaningless deliberations.

The club’s survival strategy must be clarified, as Highlanders are reeling in debt close to $1 million.

Both the chairman and the treasurer’s reports should give a detailed account of plans to generate revenue to offset the debt, including sponsorship.

Bosso’s major sponsor BancABC reduced its sponsorship by half and now only caters for players’ salaries, leaving the club struggling to pay the technical staff. Either Highlanders’ acting chairman Modern Ngwenya or treasurer Donald Ndebele will brief the members on the “aborted” clubhouse precast wall project, which only attracted two companies, Astra and Nokel. The project seems to have stalled, with only a sample in place.

Highlanders also need to be innovative and find partners for their junior teams. There is disturbing news that the Under-14, 16 and 18 teams only train once a week, shattering any hopes of the club producing good players that it was renowned for in yesteryears.

Maybe Bosso can also learn from the FC Platinum, Chicken Inn and Bantu Rovers’ models of partnering with schools. FC Platinum’s juniors are at Guinea Fowl High School in Gweru, with the bulk of Chicken Inn juniors at Mpopoma High School, while Rovers have most of theirs at Gifford High. The three teams second their coaches to train the players at the respective schools, making it easier to monitor their progress.

Another key issue that Bosso members need to deliberate on is the chairman’s position, as the club has been operating without a substantive chairman since the suspension of Peter Dube by Zifa in November last year. Zifa lifted the suspensions of retired former Bosso chief executive officer Ndumiso Gumede, the late former Zifa executive committee member Edzai Kasinauyo, former Warriors’ coach and assistant coach Ian Gorowa and Nation Dube, as well as the duo of Bulawayo City chairman Jerry Sibanda and coach Philani Ncube in February, leaving Dube as the only one out in the cold.

Dube’s case was referred to the Zifa review committee led by lawyer Itai Ndudzo, but nothing has been done to date.

It is within Highlanders members’ rights to call for a special elective meeting to either confirm Ngwenya as chairman or vote for someone.

On constitutional reforms necessitated by the need for the club to meet Fifa Club Licensing regulations, the board decided to use the opportunity to chart a new course for the club and ensure it was ready to meet future challenges.

Despite accepting the need for change at the club’s annual general meeting in January 2016, some members were sceptical about the process saying it could be used to rubber stamp an already determined constitution by the hierarchy instead of members having the biggest say.

A constitutional reform committee comprising some members of the board, executive and paid-up club members was set to lead the cause.

The members of the committee include Cosmos Sikhosana, Elkanah Dube, Donald Ndebele, Davies Sibanda, Innocent Ncube, Andrew Tapela, Nhlanhla Dube and Daniel Molokele, with Gumede as an ex-officio member. The committee was assigned to revamp the structure of the club and also come up with ways of propping up the club’s finances. Elkanah Dube, Nhlanhla Dube, Ndlovu and Tapela were tasked with interrogating the structure of the club, while Ncube, Sibanda, Molokele and Sikhosana were supposed to look at reorganising the financing mechanism of the club. How they tackle Article 10.3 of the constitution that makes one ineligible to seek re-election for 10 years after holding office for three consecutive terms will be interesting.

Tapela, whose name has been touted to lead Bosso in some quarters, might recuse himself when dealing with this article. — @ZililoR