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Highlanders coach Bongani Mafu (middle) addresses players at White City Stadium yesterday

Ricky Zililo Senior Sports Reporter
HIGHLANDERS Football Club’s preparations for Saturday’s Castle Lager Premier Soccer League clash against FC Platinum were thrown into chaos yesterday when their players refused to train in protest over unpaid winning bonuses.The players are reportedly owed bonuses for wins over Dongo Sawmill, Flame Lily and the most recent one over Whawha.

According to a senior player, winning bonuses for away matches are pegged at $170 per player and $140 for home games.

Out of the three games, Bosso have won two away and one home encounter, which translates to $480 in outstanding winning bonuses each player is owed or $8,640 combined. This excludes allowances for technical staff. The club scrapped bonuses for draws and the Bulawayo giants pay the allowances from gate takings.

The technical team was forced to cancel the day’s training programme at White City Stadium after the players steadfastly refused to take to the field despite having changed into their training kit.

When a Chronicle Sports crew arrived at the Bosso training ground at 3:05PM, the technical team was seen holding talks with the players’ representatives comprising skipper Felix Chindungwe and his deputies Mthulisi Maphosa and Erick Mudzingwa.

The rest of the players clad in training gear were milling around about 20m away from where the “talks” were taking place.

Chindungwe and his deputies then went for consultations with the rest of the players before they were all called by the technical team.

It seemed no breakthrough was reached as the players dispersed and changed into their personal gear at around 4:15pm before leaving the training ground.

“This is not how things should be because if you work you expect to be paid on time. We trained on Tuesday because we had been promised that we will get our bonuses after a home game but the club has failed to honour that. We’ve got families to feed and this can’t go on,” said one player.

“We’ve played three home games but we’ve still not been paid the bonuses. It’s our money and we want it.”

Another player made sensational claims that thinking about the unpaid allowances was affecting their performance.

“Surely, how do they expect us to concentrate when we are thinking about bonuses? At the end of the day, we get insulted but people don’t know that we will be stressed thinking about our unpaid money. They tried to trick us into training saying our money is coming today but we agreed that we will start work once we’ve been paid,” the player said.

The players are scheduled to meet club officials today to try and resolve the dispute.

Highlanders chief executive officer Ndumiso Gumede referred questions to the club’s secretary-general Emmet Ndlovu, who is doubling up as club treasurer.

Ndlovu all but admitted that the club was battling deepening financial problems saying they have been running around trying to secure soft loans to offset the players’ allowances.

“We’re committed to paying them as soon as we get cash. As it is, I’ve been running around trying to get someone to bail us. Everyone knows that we pay bonuses from gate takings and the team hasn’t been performing well, hence numbers have been dwindling at our home games,” said Ndlovu.

“For your own information, the revenue we generated against Whawha wasn’t even enough to cater for our match day costs, which include camping and other related expenses. We got $3,000 and we had to clear our camping bill with part of that money.”