Cosmas Zulu challenges Bosso intellectuals

FORTY years down the line at Highlanders FC, Cosmas Zulu has become a voice that the family cannot ignore and claims he is what he is because of the Black and White tide of Zimbabwe soccer.

Zulu openly admits that Highlanders made him the man he is today after joining the team four decades ago. While he had a brief playing history with Bosso, he achieved most of his 50 plus pieces of silverware with Amahlolanyama, Zimbabwe's most followed team in terms of match day attendances in the last decade.

In an interview on Sunday afternoon, the veteran coach who is known for being very vocal about the direction the local game is going and how his former team Highlanders seems headed to the pit, challenged young educated team supporters and followers to become members.

He wants them to take leadership positions and probably breathe in a new life to take Highlanders FC to the next level.

Stagnancy has hit the club despite the highs of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s where apart from winning trophies, producing stars that made an impact around the world, the club also invested in real estate, a first by a football team in the country.
Zulu said the young and educated are the reason why the Highlanders brand is suffering.

"Intellectuals are the people who are killing Highlanders because they don't want to come and be members. If they come in there and do things differently that brand will go far. Please I am pleading with intellectuals to come and be members.
"Come and be members instead of complaining in buses and streets. Where is everybody," said Zulu.

Zulu said it was saddening to note that every year between 300 and 326 members meet at the club's annual general meeting to choose an executive and review the previous year.

"I have been seeing the same faces in the last 30 years coming to meetings," said Zulu.

He said it was high time that people came forward to serve and save the club with a view of new thinking and direction.

Zulu said not much had changed at the club with things done the same way over and over that even gates he went through more than 40 years ago when he was a player still have not been replaced including curtains bought by former club chairman, board boss and chief executive officer Ndumiso Gumede.

He said being members and coming to meetings was the only way the young could change the Bosso narrative.
Zulu said since 1926 no Bosso chairman has bothered to take to the streets to get input on the way forward for the much-loved football club in Bulawayo and Zimbabwe.

"Since Highlanders was formed in 1926, have you ever seen a chairman going to the streets conducting a survey to find out how club should be run," asked Zulu who is popularly known as Tsano.

Zulu said Highlanders is a community team and that residents or citizens' input is very important alongside tenets of good corporate governance during the interview.

The man who also coached Railstars, AmaZulu and Ngezi Platinum Stars, said it was unfortunate that some leaders were coming on board to benefit out of the club.

"We want leaders who will help the ladder lean on the right wall to climb. At the moment we have leaders who are climbing on the success of Highlanders. As leadership where are you placing the ladder, are you placing the ladder to use to lean on the right wall for the success of Highlanders?" asked Zulu.

Past members of the executive and staffers from the 1980s to date have fallen foul of the institution over their alleged recklessness on club finances.

Many have been lucky because of the laxity in the general membership that loves to forgive perpetrators at the expense of the institution and better business management tenets.