Bosso, Mambare sign-on fee saga rages on

Highlanders and Masimba Mambare will tomorrow appear before an independent labour arbitrator to determine whether the Bulawayo team is obliged to pay the former club midfielder's outstanding sign-on fee.

Bosso and Mambare have been embroiled in a protracted legal wrangle since the player signed for champions Dynamos at the beginning of the year.

Mambare joined Bosso in March 2012 from the now defunct Harare club Motor Action on a two-year contract.

Part of the agreement that brought Mambare to Bulawayo was that Highlanders were obliged to pay the Kwekwe-born player a signing-on fee of $10 000.

The Bulawayo giants, however, failed to pay the midfielder the agreed amount during his two-year stay at the club.

As a last resort, Mambare sort assistance from the Footballers' Union of Zimbabwe (Fuz), who have been fighting in the player's corner since the saga broke out.

Initially, the Labour Court had set the case to be heard by a government appointed arbitrator but that would have taken long for the case to be set down.

The two parties were then instructed to look for an independent arbitrator and they would both share the cost of $400 but Bosso said they did not have the money.

In the end, Fuz footed the entire bill for the independent arbitrator for the matter to be concluded in a timely manner.

"The most disappointing thing in all this is that Highlanders, through their CEO Ndumiso Gumede, are now labelling Masimba as a 'mercenary' just because he is asking for what is dully owed to him," Fuz secretary general Paul Gundani told the Daily News yesterday.

"To us, Highlanders are the mercenaries in this case. It is not Masimba alone that they owe money. There are a lot of players we owe and our office has been handling these cases.

"We are now going to go before any independent arbitrator tomorrow afternoon at 2pm and I'm sure this case will come to finality.

"I've have no doubt that the arbitrator will rule in the player's favour because everything is there on the contract which was signed."

Highlanders CEO Ndumiso Gumede said: "We have reserved the matter to our legal people and they are the ones handling the matter."

The stuttering Bulawayo giants, who finished the 2014 Castle Premiership season in fifth place, are also facing more legal woes as their former players Herritein Masuku and Bruce Tshuma have also approached the Labour Court in an effort to force the club to pay outstanding dues.    

According to Gundani, the high number of cases involving clubs failing to honour their contractual obligations is because the Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) and the Premier Soccer League are not enforcing Club Licensing rules.

"Now the big challenge we have is that the PSL is not being tough on the clubs by ensuring they adhere to Club Licencing," he said.

"Zifa is the biggest culprit in this because when the PSL tries to enforce the Club Licencing regulations, clubs rush to lobby Zifa to stop this process."

Club Licensing System were introduced by the Confederation of African Football to promote;

• Promoting and improving of the quality and the level of all football aspects in Africa;

• Ensuring that clubs have the appropriate infrastructure, knowledge and application in respect of management and organization;

• Adapting and improving the clubs sporting infrastructure;

• Improving the economic and financial capacity of the clubs, through proper corporate governance and control.