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Eddie Chikamhi Harare Bureau
HARARE giants Dynamos are looking to engage persons and companies that are illegally selling their club regalia and form partnerships so that they get a percentage from the sale of the wares.

The club’s board secretary Chris Kasiyazi told our sister The Herald yesterday that the side was losing out on opportunities to rake in “several thousand dollars” through the sale of their merchandise by vendors and unlicensed dealers.

Kasiyazi said in line with intellectual property rights, Dynamos are the owners of the name and logos used by the vendors and should be the sole legal beneficiaries from their products.

The Glamour Boys had in the past threatened to take legal action against the unlicensed vendors of Dynamos regalia who have been mushrooming in major cities and towns but the club’s hierarchy this time have opted for engagement.

Dynamos flags, jerseys, scarfs and key-holders are often sold at the club’s matches at low prices while some dealers in towns have stocks of unlicensed Glamour Boys merchandise.

“We believe there is a lot of piracy, we understand the economy is not performing well hence one is tempted to do all sorts of activities. If you look locally the Dynamos brand sells and we believe we can actually tap into that which they are doing and raise money.

“Imagine if everyone who is selling a Dynamos flag at the street corner contributes a certain percentage this will actually go a long way. So this is where we really putting the logistics in place.

“It’s something that has been on the cards for some time because the board did approve it last year. So we are finalising of which in the next couple of weeks we should be unveiling how things are going to be.

“But again questions have been asked to say now what do you do with this guy on the streets? What we are going to do is that those people who feel they can produce quality Dynamos regalia, they can come to us and prove to us what they can do.

“We can organise them because we understand everyone is looking for a living. So we will organise them, even if it means coming up with a factory of some sort. They produce on our behalf and we also recruit those that we believe have good marketing and selling skills to become part of the network.

“At the end of the day we are not going to render them jobless but they are going to be part of the team. It has to be organised so that at the end of the day Dynamos Football Club benefits,” said Kasiyazi.

DeMbare have often been criticised of not taking full advantage of their brand to help ease their financial woes. The club relies mostly on gate takings for their revenue. They have also been bandaged by the sponsorship from BancABC which went to players’ salaries. But recently the bank announced it was cutting down its package by almost 40 percent.

As a result, Kasiyazi said DeMbare needed to benefit from its own brand through vigorous marketing strategies and revealed that the Glamour Boys will restructure their management.

“In one of our board meetings we have actually approved to restructure our set up where we now have the football club as a unit on its own and then we have come up with the commercial arm.

“What we expect the commercial arm to do is to look at the environment we are operating in. The economy is not performing well, our sponsors are also finding it difficult hence they have cut down the assistance that had been given to us.

“What that demands on our side is to really revisit our set up. We need to be entrepreneurial, we need to be innovative and being creative in saying how do we exploit the full potential of our brand to also raise some resources for the club. So this commercial unit ideally will come up with ideas to generate money.

“We are going to have a group chief executive where we have two arms, management executive and then the commercial director who is responsible for ensuring that there are certain revenue targets put in place and expected to be met so that in season and out of season there is a continuous flow of revenue into the Dynamos coffers,” said Kasiyazi.

DeMbare failed to take part in the Champions League this year because of financial constraints. Kasiyazi said they are also looking to rebuild a strong side as they look to qualify for the continental competition again next year.

He said the board has set ambitious targets for the Kenny Mubaiwa-led executive and the new technical team fronted by David Mandigora.

“From a board’s perspective what we want to see is success. At Dynamos, winning the championship has been done. You can’t say are successful as an executive by winning the championship.

“As a board we gave the nod that we are not going to participate in the African safari. We are going to be rebuilding the team but once that is in place we want to see ourselves going for continental glory. I think it’s time.

“We have been to the finals before and we believe the success of this executive is measured by getting to that level, if not getting the trophy. This is something that we believe we are trying to put in place and we expect them to do that,” said Kasiyazi.