BY FORTUNE MBELE
BULAWAYO Chiefs have raised a red flag over Dynamos’ acquisition of midfielder Shadreck Nyahwa whom the Bulawayo club insist is still contracted to them.
Chiefs have hinted that they will demanded transfer fees if Dynamos are to be allowed to retain the player who is already training with them.
According to Chiefs, Nyahwa signed a two-year contract with Bulawayo Chiefs in 2019 and based on Zifa guidelines, he still has a year of his contract with the Ninja Boys.
Chiefs have raised dust over the player’s move after Dynamos went behind their back to sign him without consulting about his status.
Bulawayo Chiefs director Lovemore Sibanda is not happy with the way Nyahwa ended up at Dynamos and took a swipe at the Glamour Boys’ big-boy mentality.
“We are sticking to the Zifa guidelines and (Shadreck) Nyahwa is our player. Dynamos were disrespectful. They didn’t even make an effort to find out the player’s status from us. They just kept quiet up to now. But it is not how business is done, clubs consult on players before taking them on board. But one just takes a player who tells them I am from Bulawayo Chiefs and you don’t even bother to engage the club,” Sibanda said.
The Zifa guidelines state that players who had their contracts expiring in December last year, will roll over to this year since there was no football in 2020.
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“That boy (Nyahwa) signed a two-year contract for 2019 and 2020. He was paid US$4 000 or $5 000 sign-on fee. He bought a stand in agreement with his family. He played for us in 2019 and in 2020 there was no football. His salary was in Zimdollars, I can’t remember the actual figure and in 2020 we agreed to give him US$100 per month, way above what he was getting in bond (local currency) as per his contract. We religiously catered for his salary from January to December of 2020. He was not providing us any services and our belief was as long as we were still taking care of him, he would remain our player when football starts,” Sibanda said.
He added: “Then we wake up and people start grabbing players without even talking to us. It’s not fair. What we are saying is the boy must give us services for that one year when there was no football activity, but we were paying your salaries and the boy just disappears.”
The Bulawayo Chief boss said clubs agreed on player contracts when they met last year and the Zifa guidelines have spelt out what has to be done.
The Premier Soccer League (PSL) last Friday resolved that player contracts roll over to this year, a position which was disputed by the Footballers Union of Zimbabwe, who contend new contracts must be negotiated.
“We stand guided by Zifa guidelines. Zifa is our mother body. We are Zifa affiliates. So Zifa made those recommendations (on player contracts). Those recommendations were made through advice from their lawyers. When we went to Harare last year in October to meet over the COVID-19 funding, all PSL governors were there and all clubs were represented and people asked Zifa about player contracts and indicated the mother body had taken too long to make a position on the matter. Fifa released their guidelines in April last year and they gave us reasons on why they (Zifa) had not, but the guidelines were later released and the clubs were happy and then we have clubs who go behind others’ backs and claim player contracts have expired when we have all agreed,” Sibanda said.
Meanwhile, Chicken Inn are reluctant to give Valentine Kadonzo’s clearance for him to join Ngezi Platinum Stars.
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