With four matches remaining to the end of the Premier Soccer League season last year, Highlanders players went on strike demanding unpaid winning bonuses, forcing the club‘s executive committee to suspend the team’s captains Erick Mudzingwa, Ariel Sibanda and Rahman Kutsanzira.
BY FORTUNE MBELE
No-nonsense central defender Peter Muduhwa took over the armband along with veteran striker Ralph Matema and Gabriel Nyoni.
Muduhwa led the team in an acting capacity until the end of the season and new head Madinda Ndlovu last week revealed that they had come up with a new leadership for the team, but they would not reveal names as his bosses were in Harare attending the NetOne sponsorship deal unveiling.
Could Muduhwa (24) become Highlanders’ substantive captain for the 2018 Castle Lager Premier Soccer League season to be announced soon by the club’s CEO Nhlanhla Dube?
“We are waiting for the CEO to announce. As the technical team, we have come with our three captains, but we need endorsement from the executive. We have put that structure in place,” Ndlovu said.
The Bosso coach is assembling a youthful squad comprised of players from last year’s senior team, those from the club’s Under-18 squad and the developmental side Bosso 90.
Ndlovu, who envisages the days of strikes and walkouts ending at the Bulawayo giants in his tenure, said his mandate was to foster the club’s yester-year culture. He said it was up to the executive to either endorse or reject those names that they have come up with. The former Warriors striker said they had come up with a players’ committee to work with the captains to address players’ grievances in liaison with the captains to avoid the unwanted upheavals from the players’ camp.
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“We have gone ahead in terms of that and to propose to the executive a players’ committee which will mainly be comprised of not more than six senior players that will deal with issues,” he said.
“Players and captains may make wrong decisions out of impulse, so we have given them another panel that they can deliberate and caucus on issues before they can table them to the technical team or executive committee. We are just waiting for the CEO to table that, then we can announce.”
He said whoever captains Highlanders today in the ZNA Commander’s Charity Shield semi-final against Chicken Inn at Barbourfields Stadium this aftrenoon, would be doing so in an acting capacity.
The gaffer said the 30-member squad for the 2018 season would also be announced soon.
Ndlovu and his lieutenants Mandla Mpofu and goalkeepers’ coach Tembo Chumbo are on three-year contracts with Highlanders.
