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Sikhumbuzo Moyo Senior Sports Reporter
THE Mighty Warriors have finally been paid part of their $430 bonuses which they are owed by Zifa, we can reveal today.
Zifa communications manager Xolisani Gwesela declined to disclose how much the players got but Chronicle Sport is reliably informed that each member of the victorious Mighty Warriors was given $140, leaving a balance of $290 which will be cleared in due course.
“They have given us $140 and although it’s far from what we are owed we feel it’s better than nothing,” said a player who requested anonymity for fear of victimisation.

The girls said they were informed by their respective team managers on Monday afternoon that their money had been released.
Said Gwesela:

“I will never reveal how much we gave them or how much we owe as that will be a violation of their contractual right but I can confirm that indeed we have given the Mighty Warriors a substantial amount of what we owed them and the balance will be cleared in due course.”

The players are owed outstanding allowances from the first leg encounter against Botswana while after the second leg at Rufaro Stadium they remained holed up at the Zifa Village as Zifa struggled to get transport money for the players to return to their homes.

Their diet also torched a national storm as they were at one time fed on sadza, poorly prepared pumpkin leaves (ibhobola) and kapenta. The revelation by the media claimed its first victim last week when the Mighty Warriors’ fitness trainer Gerald Maguranyanga was fired for making alleged reckless statements in the media calling for the resignation of the Zifa chief executive officer Jonathan Mashingaidze over the welfare of the girls.

In his dismissal letter to Maguranyanga, the Zifa head of secretariat described him as an “indecorous character.”
“The Zimbabwe Football Association hereby informs you that you are with immediate effect excluded from the senior national women’s team set up. Your exclusion has been occasioned by your conduct and or utterances which did not bode well with our efforts to reposition our game,” wrote Mashingaidze.

Maguranyanga, who also described Mashingaidze as a “pathological liar”, has since rubbished the move and said it was and will remain a non-event.
In his attack on Mashingaidze, the fitness expert had also called for the chief executive officer’s immediate resignation as a result of the Mighty Warriors’ Zifa Village ordeal.

Maguranyanga said Mashingaidze could not fire him since he was engaged by the national women’s body.