Zimpapers Logo

Ali “Baba” Dube

Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
LEGENDARY juniors’ coach Ali “Baba” Dube has made an emotional appeal to Highlanders to pay him his outstanding dues as he doesn’t want to be forced into taking the club to court.

Dube, now juniors’ coach at Bulawayo City FC, made the unprecedented appeal at the club’s mid-year general meeting held at the club house on Sunday.

Bosso owe Dube $1 200.

He said he had been forced to use the extraordinary general meeting platform, as the club seemed unwilling to pay him, almost six years after he rendered his services.

Dube also blasted the club’s office staff for disrespecting him and making him feel as a nobody whenever he went to the office to demand his money.

“I don’t usually talk in such meetings, but I feel members have to know the truth. After I left this club, I was owed $2 100 and the former treasurer Jerry Sibanda phoned me when I was at my rural home and asked me to come and get my money, and on arrival he paid me $900, leaving a balance of $1 200.

“Unfortunately he left to head Bulawayo City and you (Donald Ndebele) came in. I told you about my issue, but you did nothing and every time I go to the office, I am badly treated by those girls. I have told myself that it’s better I stop going there because I will end up committing a serious crime and go to jail.

“I then fell ill and while in hospital langiphathela amagwadla kuphela. I have done a lot for this club, produced great players, but this is how I get treated. I don’t want to drag it to the lawyers like what other people have done because I still take it as my home; please where is my money,” said an emotional Dube soon after Ndebele had just finished presenting his treasurer’s report.

The report did not mention that Dube was still owed by the club.

There was silence for a moment before Ndebele apologised for the ill-treatment Dube might have suffered at the hands of the Bosso office staff and promised to look into the matter urgently.

The Highlanders’ debt stands at $816 606, but the few members that attended the mid-year meeting failed to come up with meaningful resolutions on how to extinguish the crisis.

While it was not passed as a resolution, some members suggested that the club prioritises the promotion of junior players to the senior team instead of signing below average players.

Members said any signings must be exceptionally talented and command a starting jersey in the first team.

They heavily criticised the roping in of the present foreign players, whom they described as average.

“While the coach might say he wants the player, he must be told the culture of this club and that the players he is bringing from outside must be exceptional in terms of quality, not what we are having now. These new players don’t come here for free, but instead add on to our increasing debt yet a youngster from the juniors could have been a better investment,” said a member.