Debunking Bosso's problems

I believe that some of the bigger problems stalking Highlanders Football Club at the moment, e.g the lack of a long-term strategic plan to guide the club regarding finances, player acquisition and retention e.t.c emanate from our constitution.

I will try and justify my assertion.

1) The first and most glaring fact is that the terms of the executive management committee are too short to plan and achieve anything meaningful. Three years is too short a time for one to be able to draw up a plan of action and implement it. What tends to happen is that once an executive is elected into office, they will spend the first year figuring out or planning what to do, the second year initiating those plans, and the third year will be spent in election mode, which rarely yields nothing because of too much pressure for results. I believe that a more practical term length would be 5 years where those elected would be able to do proper strategic planning as a team and have ample time to implement those plans and seeing them through, rather than running the risk of seeing those plans discarded in three years when another executive comes in.

2) Secondly, I believe that the terms of all the executive members should run concurrently, i.e. they should begin and end at the same time. This means that each time we know that we have a team of people who know that they have a fixed period within which to carry out their mandate without someone counting on the fact that others will go and they remain. It will also allow the "running mate" sort of scenario where like-minded people may be elected into office at the same time and therefore stand greater chances of success, avoiding a situation where some have claimed that their efforts were being sabotaged by fellow executive members. It also allows these elected individuals to develop their own short or midterm strategic plan that they will be able to implement during the life of their term(s). In this way, the Bosso members will be able to remove the executive as a whole if not satisfied with their performance.

3) Thirdly, the issue of the board also needs to be addressed. In my opinion, when the terms of reference of the board were changed to incorporate "executive" board, it meant that the composition of that board had to be changed to indicate the executive nature of that board. This means that the board should be composed of technocrats and and individuals who are able to participate (not necessarilly run) in the day to day administration of the club. The Executive board is meant to supervise the activities of the executive committee, hence it follows that members of the board should have superior qualifications (or resources) to those of the executive committee. We have people in the board who are qualified for the roles they play, as well as people in the board who would better serve in an advisory role.

4) The last point above brings me to the next point. I believe there is duplication in terms of roles played by the board and executive committee. A number of board members would better serve in an advisory board or board of trustees with no executive roles. I won't dwell much on this one as it has been discussed to death.

5) The method of coopting people into the board needs to be revised as it does not make sense to me that the executive committee is the one that nominates a person to the board, with the card-carrying members only asked to ratify the cooption. How do you choose your boss? It should be up to the members to nominate or elect a board member, with a defined length of term which may be extended by the members when in becomes due. I don't think life-membership of an "executive" board makes sense.

6) The whole administrative structure at Highlanders needs to be revised in line with current trends if we are to survive as a club. There needs to be someone EMPLOYED FULLTIME to run the club on a day-to-day basis and that individual must be answerable to a board of trustees who in turn are answerable to the members of Highlanders football club. That way the club will be run like a business which has to make money and be able to declare profits at the end of each year.

Highlanders does have benefactors but gone are the days where one would continue pouring money into the club with no benefit to themselves. Football is a business and we should realise the same.

Finally, constitutional changes CAN be made at Highlanders, it just requires the buy-in of a sizeable number of bona fide members who want to see things move, and not just people who want to talk with no action. Yimik owenu owakoNdlovu