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midfielder Archieford Gutu’s bid to play for the Harare giants this season by tasking club chief executive Casper Muzenda to thrash out a deal for the player.
Gutu missed out when a fired up Dynamos outfit crushed Algerian Champions MC Alger 4-1 at Rufaro on Sunday to help the Glamour Boys edge closer to a Champions League second round place.
The Warriors midfielder had been included in coach Lloyd Mutasa’s plans before a contractual dispute between Dynamos and Gutu’s manager Calvin Nyazema left the player in limbo.
Nyazema maintained that he would not allow Gutu to feature in a competitive match for Dynamos before the player had signed a contract with the club.
This, Nyazema argued, was meant to safeguard Gutu’s interests and “the only professional route to follow in football administration”.
Following Gutu’s withdrawal from the Dynamos team, a war of words ensued between DeMbare chairman Farai Munetsi and Nyazema, which was also threatening to derail efforts to register Gutu in time for the start of the domestic Premiership campaign on Saturday.
Muzenda yesterday revealed that the Dynamos board of directors had now tasked him to take over and ensure that the Gutu deal is finalised today.
The Dynamos chief executive emerged from a meeting of the board of directors chaired by Richard Chiminya in the City centre yesterday to announce that the dispute between Nyazema and the club over Gutu had now been refereed to his office.
“I am now handling Gutu’s case and I am meeting Nyazema tomorrow.
“I have asked him to bring all the documentation and for the club to furnish my desk with everything so that I finalise the issue over the player,” said Muzenda.
Although a ray of hope filtered over the Gutu saga yesterday, the dispute once again brought to the fore the problems over player registration that have dogged the Harare giants.
Dynamos were also slow off the mark in registering players for the Champions League mainly because the majority of the players who were on their books last season had contracts, which expired on December 31, 2010.
This meant that when Mutasa and his assistant Masimba Dinyero were appointed following the resignation of Elvis Chiweshe, they had to start assembling a new team that would launch the DeMbare onslaught for both the domestic and continental campaigns.
It has also since emerged that a number of players who were in Sunday’s game have either not sealed contracts with Dynamos or have not been paid, which would mean that the Harare giants are technically without a first choice squad to kick-start their Premiership campaign.
Dynamos are scheduled to begin their 2011 Castle Premiership campaign with a date against Kiglon this weekend.
But apart from Gutu, another exciting midfielder Denver Mukamba, goalkeeper Maxwell Nyamupangedengu, striker Roderick Mutuma, and Devon Chafa have still not inked deals with the Harare giants.
Questions have also been asked about Dynamos’ failure to conclude player deals when they have an office at the National Stadium that is manned by a chief executive – Muzenda.
Zifa and the Premier Soccer League would also need to closely assess the administrative structures at the local clubs where basic tenets of the game as enshrined in the Fifa regulations are still not being followed.
Dynamos’ problems with players look set to also come up for discussion when the board of directors and the club’s shareholders meet at their annual meeting in two weeks time.
The much anticipated Dynamos annual meeting, originally pencilled in for the National Sports Stadium on March 19 has now been rescheduled for the same venue on April 2 following the non-availability of some key members last Saturday.
Acting Dynamos Football Club (Private) Limited secretary Owen Chandamale said they had been forced to postpone the watershed indaba because some key members including club treasurer Harrison Mbewe were not available last Saturday.
Mbewe had also been expected to table Dynamos’ audited accounts at that annual indaba.
The Dynamos treasurer also holds a similar post at the Premier Soccer League and the league held an extraordinary meeting on the same day that the Harare giants’ founding fathers and former players – now trading as the board of directors – were expected to converge at the National Sports Stadium.
“We are now meeting on 2 April. We had wanted to meet this Sunday but we felt there was need to give everyone due notice of the new date.
“Our chairman (Chiminya) was also not going to be available this week because he has other commitments and we feel all the directors need to be there for that important meeting.
“Last Saturday Mbewe had a crucial PSL meeting and he was also running around with the logistics of hosting the Algerian visitors and we could not have a meeting where the financial statement was not presented,” Chandamale said.