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Methembe Ndlovu

Off the ball with Limukani Ncube
SO Bantu Rovers are back in the elite league. For the duration of their stay in Division One after they bit the dust in 2010, it was a question of time when they would be back.
Of course, the brains behind the project, Methembe “Mayor” Ndlovu might have suffered some temporary setbacks in recent years due to board room issues at Zifa, but he never threw in the towel and he never abandoned his project which has for sure proved to be a success story.

It would have been awesome had they come back to the top league via promotion, but here they are, after buying or swapping places with Plumtree Chiefs, and that is still reason enough to celebrate.

They have shown they have the zeal to compete at the top level and Mayor has shown a rare character of a shrewd businessman in the football industry.
There are very few people in Zimbabwe who have managed to make some dollars out of this thing called football that we all love, but he has managed to cut financially rewarding deals outside the country moving a couple of local boys and that should come in handy to keep Bantu Rovers afloat in a more financially demanding Premier League.

Hate him or love him, he knows the numbers to dial to get things moving and a host of football coaches and administrators, especially in Bulawayo, will benefit should they decide to put aside their arrogance and learn from his book of tricks.

Now that he is back in the Premier League, we turn back the hands of time and remember the first time when his project was introduced after buying another franchise. The story line did not end well when they were relegated, and we hope this time around, Mayor and his leadership have learnt from their mistakes and are back to stay.

The capacity of Bantu Rovers to buy the franchise from Chiefs was a blessing for Bulawayo as it keeps the franchise at home, thereby maintaining the number of Premiership teams in this part of the country at four, after Highlanders, Chicken Inn and How Mine-not a bad number by any standards.

The media believes about $40,000 exchanged hands between Chiefs and Rovers for the franchise, in what was described as a swap by sources.
“It is more of a swap deal because Chiefs is now a developmental side of Bantu Rovers. They paid $40,000 and Zifa also got its share as owners of the franchise. We also asked them to look at the issues of assets and liabilities so that club licensing rules are properly followed. Otherwise, there is nothing that could have stopped the deal from going ahead,” a Zifa source said yesterday.

Zifa communications manager Xolisani Gwesela confirmed the deal, saying their legal department was going through the documents.
“We received the paperwork yesterday (Monday) and the legal team has started working on it. At the moment I cannot say how long this will take but we will advise as soon as this is completed,” he said.

So if it was a swap deal, Chiefs will play in the Southern Region Division One league this season, but that would certainly not be sweet music to their players who toiled all year round to get the team promoted. And once again, spare a thought to coach Thulani Sibanda, and by the way, he was once at Bantu Rovers.

I’m sure even football lovers in Plumtree  Town feel they were sold a dummy when the team was named Plumtree Chiefs from Bulawayo Chiefs, in purported readiness to take Premier league football to the border town.

The team even held a “pre-season” training camp in Plumtree with the local political leadership getting involved, but all that has come to pass for nothing. To make matters worse for the players, in recent weeks, they have played a couple of friendly matches in “preparation” for the Premiership, and some were to learn while in the dressing room ahead of the friendly against FC Platinum that they had to pull their socks so as to impress and be considered for the “merger” with Bantu Rovers.

The grapevine is that some players might fulfill their dream of playing top flight football as Bantu might take on board a few, bearing in mind that they have a squad that was playing in Division One and actually came close to winning the title two seasons ago. But what this means for the majority of players and coaches at Plumtree Chiefs is that Premier league will remain at pipe dream, at least for now, and that should hurt.

For the duration of last season, they were touted as the model of a modern football team, as a team determined to change the face of football in the city.
They even had the luxury of hiring former Highlanders and Warriors coach Rahman Gumbo, they had a team bus, would go camping ahead of matches, something unheard of  in Division One.

They paid handsome allowances and salaries, so goes the grapevine, they had set up an academy with a minibus and a coach dedicated to the project.  The list goes on and on.
More so, the owner of the team, a local businessman who purchased the franchise of FC Winderemere, Lovemore Sibanda, sounded passionate and determined to take the project to the next level. So where did the wheels go off the rails?

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