Strike by the Bosso players will not yield anything

HIGHLANDERS chief executive officer Nhlanhla Dube has said the strike by the Bosso players will not yield anything since it will not quicken processes that will unlock their salaries, which are believed to be almost complete.

The Bosso head of secretariat indicated that they had been open with the players with regards the progression of talks regarding their salaries, which are tied to sponsorship. Dube believes that boycotting training by the players will not change anything since the club's partners are following certain routes before the sponsorship is renewed.

According to Dube, they have been open with the players regarding when they expect the enabling processes that would allow them to start paying salaries to be complete.

"The strike is futile because it doesn't make the processes move faster, our partners have set processes that must be followed. The assumption is that if they go on strike something will happen is unhelpful to anybody. We have told them when its going to happen. They were given a date to look forward to, if that date passes by and nothing has happened, they can come back to us,'' Dube said.

In the words of the Bosso CEO, they have been as honest as possible to the players regarding the salary situation and therefore the club leadership does not understand why there is a strike. He said it was now a matter of weeks before the sponsorship was renewed.

"We can't promise a date that is not tied with the processes, Highlanders are in the processes of tying up the enabler for salaries to be paid. It's not a case of refusal to pay salaries, it's a matter of processes not being complete, certain processes take longer than we expect. It's a matter of concluding the processes in the few coming weeks. We explained in reasonable detail how far we are for the salaries to be unlocked. I am not sure where the point of departure was for some of the players to go on strike. Our revenue inflows are limited at the moment,'' Dube said.

Highlanders players embarked on a second strike last week in protest over unpaid salaries for January and February. It was the second downing of tools for Bosso players after some of them abandoned a pre-season camp held in Matabeleland South. The first strike ended when the club paid the players $200 each, which is said to have been from Bosso's participation in last season's Chibuku Super Cup.

Bosso players who spoke to this publication said they last got salaries on 18 December 2018 and were finding it tough to make ends meet since they have families to look after and rentals to pay. Dube said they have on a number of occasions gotten involved to solve rental problems for the players with the landlords being considerate.

"We have intervened on behalf of our players to confirm with their landlords that indeed we have not paid them salaries and the landlords have been very understanding. We are willing to make life as bearable as possible in the meantime. A lot of hard work is going on to make sure this situation is solved soon,'' he said.

With Highlanders due to play city rivals Chicken Inn in the Zimbabwe National Army Charities Shield on 9 March, Dube declared that they were going to field their strongest possible team for that fixture.

"We will field a strong team for the ZNA Charities Shield, we are participating in a big way."

On the thinking behind having the pre-season camps in Matabeleland South and Eastern Highlanders when the players have not been paid, Dube explained that they had sourced funding for those camps and that is not linked to salaries.

"We pre-sourced funding for the pre-season camps, we had partners who paid for accommodation and fuel. The salaries are taken care of by a separate arrangement, the two don't relate to each other. Pre-season is based on certain processes, we got support from WhatsApp groups and some institutions," Dube said.

Most senior players at Highlanders boycotted training last week with only the new signings like Russell Mhindiriri, Nqobizitha Masuku, Cleopas Kupupurika and Prince Dube being part of Madinda Ndlovu's fine tuning sessions.

The Highlanders wage bill for players and the technical team is said to be around $40 000 a month and last year the club sustained that through sponsorship from mobile phone network operator NetOne who also sponsored Caps United, Dynamos as well as Black Rhinos. With the sponsor said to have gagged the clubs from speaking about the negotiations, it is not yet clear when the sponsorship will be eventually renewed.