Dube challenges Bosso leadership

LONG-TIME Highlanders benefactor Tshinga Dube has emphasised the need for meritocracy in everything if the club is to break the 18-year-old title drought.

He also called for unity and prioritisation of the club at the expense of wanting friends to run the club for prestige.

Campaigns, he said, were often hot air and the most important thing was to deliver to the masses.

Highlanders have not won the title since 2006 when Methembe Ndlovu was the coach. A countless number of coaches including foreigners have led the club but to no avail as the title has eluded them.

Dube said it all starts with the election of deserving executive members and players who are above average who will deliver.

He said Highlanders is too big a club to stay that long without league glory.

Attendances at matches, he said, could even be better for the most supported

Zimbabwe club by crowd attendances at matches.

“It’s embarrassing to stay 18 years without winning the league title. It is the ultimate prize in the game. It’s embarrassing that Bosso has not won the title. It starts with members choosing the right leaders, coaches identifying the right players who are above average and have a fuller meaning of who Highlanders are and what the targets and expectations of the supporters are. Coaches must choose the right striker for the position, right midfielders to supply and the best defenders to represent and defend the Bosso brand. We are a big team and we should be talked about among the biggest clubs in the continents,” said Dube.

He bemoaned the lack of a strategy to identify or groom future club leaders.

“We have no system to groom the next club leaders. We are divided and into many groups. Selecting leaders like in the Communist world is a meticulous process worth emulating. It brings about unity as by the time elections come, a leader would have been identified and on election day he is just confirmed as everyone would be agreeable to his candidacy.

“He will have been deemed the best man carrying the aspirations of the team and everyone rallies behind him with no hidden agenda. It is no longer the case at the club. There is no unity, people have factions all bent on having friends running the club without consideration for who is the best candidate in the given list,” said Dube.

Dube said the hectic and expensive campaigns candidates are going into are not part of the club culture. He said they leave the club and membership bruised as they punctuate factionalism that is inherent. He appealed for unity and members to put Highlanders first.

“Ask yourself whose interest you are putting first in the campaign and elections. Should it be your friend or the club emerging as the winner. Let us have peaceful elections where we scrutinise each and every candidate. Has he ever led something before or he wants to start with Highlanders,” said Dube on Saturday evening.

He said stereotypes must end at Bosso as football was now an industry and leaders must show some innovation and change the model into business so that the club must survive.

He said the executive that is in place and the players must know that they have responsibility to a number of stakeholders who include fans, members and sponsors.

“They must be able to satisfy customer expectation. If results are not coming people stop going to stadia, they see no reason of going there and leave in disappointment and hence many would rather stay at home,” said Dube a retired army officer whose love affair with Highlanders dates back to the 1950s when he lived in Makokoba before leaving for Zambia to liberate the country.

He challenged the Highlanders management to think outside the box and embrace cash generating projects to sustain the football club until soccer can sustain itself through replicas, clubhouse activities and sale of players to meaningful destinations.

“For how long will Highlanders carry a begging bowl? It is outdated, look at other avenues. Right now the rich people are into mining, why not explore the venture facilitated by President Mnangagwa to help Bosso stand on its own.

Get 10 000 chickens raise them and sell, you will realise a good profit. Goats are the in-thing, it’s worth exploring, and agriculture is lucrative too.

The club must pay players well to retain and attract the best.

If you do not pay them well they will go elsewhere and come back to haunt you,” said Dube.