CAPS United players are heroes.
They have endured all season and are still going strong.
Most of them have had to engage in other side hustles to make ends meet. They have suffered mental battering and there is no prize for guessing a good number of them will be leaving the Green Machine at the end of this season.
Just three days after waiting all-day long for their US$28 allowance to travel to Bulawayo last Friday, they had to endure a 45-minute wait as their team bus was denied entry to the training venue over payment issues yesterday.
Makepekepe players delayed leaving the capital for Bulawayo on Friday last week as they demanded their dues from the club’s administration. They faced Chicken Inn at Luveve on Saturday in a match they led for the better part before eventually losing 2-1 after conceding deep in added-time.
They haven’t received their salaries for the last two months and winning bonuses for their last two victories over Triangle and Cranborne Bullets haven’t been paid as well.
And they were demanding the dues before the team management offered them US$28 each to fulfil the match against Chicken Inn.
After protracted talks in which management promised to settle the outstanding salaries and bonuses this week, the players eventually agreed to travel to Bulawayo and arrived there at around 11pm on Friday.
They battled and opened the scoring through Tulani Joseph but eventually fell short.
And at a time they were still reliving the routine disappointment, they were made to wait outside the gate as security manning the entrance to their upmarket training venue refused, under the sports club management’s instruction, to allow them in for their training session yesterday.
CAPS United had accrued debts from last week and the owners of the training venue also wanted them to pay for the use of the facility before they started training.
After a 45-minute delay, they were then allowed in. CAPS United chief executive, Charlie Jones, as has become his modus operandi, did not pick his calls yesterday but welfare manager, Shakespeare Chinogwenya, who was on the ground, said the team has since settled the payment.
“There was a slight communication hiccup between the club and the venue management. That resulted in us being briefly stopped at the gate but it wasn’t a big deal. It was just for the purposes of verification of the payments,” said Chinogwenya. “The money was paid yesterday (Monday) actually but the confirmation of payment was delayed. So once it came, we were allowed in and as you can see the team is now preparing to train.
“We are thankful to the management whom we have worked together with all season. We are also very much thankful to our club for making sure we always train without any hiccups. They have even paid for the whole week in advance.
“Prior to this payment, we had also been booked for two months in advance so this is no big deal because we work together well with the management here.”
Makepekepe had assembled one of the strongest teams in the league but the players spent most of the season staging sit-ins.
Others, including Clive Augusto, Simba Chinani and Dennis Dauda, had to be expelled for mutiny while Ronald Chitiyo and Jimmy Dzingai opted out.
And the latter, who is also into music, is celebrating securing a move with a Bangladesh top-flight side Muktijodda SKC.
The Warriors defender had joined Makepekepe early this year, signing as a free agent following his parting ways with Nkana of Zambia. Dzingai signed a one-year deal with the Bangladesh team and he will be leaving the country any time soon given that there will be issues with the visa upon his entry into that country. One of the most reliable defenders in the Warriors fold, Dzingai said he was excited with the new challenge.
“I am very delighted to be joining this Bangladesh team. I will be joining my new teammates soon and I hope to do well and help the team achieve their goals,” said Dzingai.
“I hope to learn the language and get used to their food as soon as I can so that I can enjoy the league. I am still the Jimmy Dzingai you all know and I am going out there to show how much talent Zimbabwe is carrying.” – The Herald
