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Thulani Sibanda

Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter
BULAWAYO Chiefs have reiterated their commitment to playing in the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League, dispelling rumours that they have put their franchise on the market.

The silence at Chiefs since winning the Southern Region Division One league in 2017 and gaining promotion to the topflight has been deafening, triggering talk about whether the club bankrolled by local businessman Dumisani Sibanda is ready for topflight football.

James Rugovera, the Chiefs chairman, said the club, which once sold its Premiership franchise to Bantu Rovers after winning the 2013 Southern Region Division One league title, has started its pre-season preparations.

“From an administrative point of view, we’re working round the clock to make sure all goes well in our first Premiership season. We’ve secured a training ground for the team and the technical team started looking at the players at Ross Camp last week. As a club, we would like to clearly state that we’re definitely ready to play in the PSL and we will not be giving away our franchise,” Rugovera said.

Chiefs have a coaching dilemma, as their head coach Thulani Sibanda and assistant Mduduzi Mpofu are ineligible to sit on the PSL bench since they are not holders of Caf A coaching badges.

Zifa are not backtracking on standardisation of coaches, with the football federation’s technical director Wilson Mutekede saying those affected have to register for the Caf programmes that will resume in March.

This means Chiefs have to find a Caf A licensed coach to head their technical team, while Sibanda and Mpofu wait for the next Caf A class.

Besides the Caf B badge, Sibanda is a holder of a Scottish C-Licence and a Sports Science degree from the National University of Science and Technology (Nust). With three First Division titles under his belt, Sibanda has now enrolled for a Uefa B-Licence that will be held at Edinburg University in Scotland in May 2018.

His first championship in Division One was in 2011 when he guided now defunct Quelaton into the Premiership. Sibanda won the 2013 First Division title with Bulawayo Chiefs, but the club decided against going to the Premiership and sold their franchise to Bantu Rovers.

“We respect Zifa and believe that they’re keen on seeing the game of football developing and as such, we are going to engage them with the hope of getting the guys, who led us into the PSL continuing with the squad. Look, Sibanda and Mpofu are both holders of sports science degrees obtained over a period of four years. What we also intend to highlight is that the Caf A courses, which are done in a month, were frozen last year. We don’t want to recycle, but give these young coaches an opportunity to prove themselves,” said Rugovera.

It is highly unlikely that the Chiefs duo will get any reprieve from Zifa.

“We fully understand the frustrations of Caf B holders, but there is no going back on standardisation and its implementation will certainly affect others.

There is nothing personal, we are just implementing tenets of Fifa Club Licensing. The association has trained a good 81 Caf A coaches, meaning the PSL will get 36 of those and there’s still a good number of coaches with Caf A licences available,” said Mutekede. — @ZililoR