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Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
HIGHLANDERS players have refuted claims circulating on social media that they threatened to strike over failure by the club to fulfill its January promise to raise their salaries by 78 percent.

The players said a club official had tried to incite them to down tools “if we feel aggrieved by the club’s failure to honour its promise”.
Players told Chronicle Sport that they only asked the club leadership about its promise and they were awaiting the executive to address them on the matter.

“It has never been our intention to strike; we just delayed the start of training waiting for the executive to come and address us, but they did not come. Instead, they called our captains to the office to resolve the matter during the week that we played a friendly match against FC Platinum,” said a senior player.

Another player said upon their return from the office, the captains told them that chairman Johnfat Sibanda had informed them that the club cannot afford to pay salaries backdated to January because there was no sponsor at the moment, and going that route would ground the institution.

“Guys seem to be having a soft spot for the chairman. It looks like he is honest and realistic so, even after being told the usual rhetoric by someone that we can embark on a strike, the general consensus was that we should not go that route.

We all know that the club has no sponsor, but we hope that the executive is working round the clock to change this because our salaries are peanuts,” said the player.

Bosso spokesperson Ronald Moyo said the club has always reviewed salaries even during the trying Covid-19 period, but will not discuss the issue in respect of employees’ rights to privacy. He also dismissed the strike reports.

“The club has constantly and consistently reviewed salaries through the Covid-19 period. But like any other organisation that respects its employees’ contractual rights to privacy, we won’t be discussing the employees’ salaries in public. There’s no truth to the suggestion of a strike at any point,” said Moyo.