Dembare's Pasuwa survives chop

DESPITE the mounting speculation over his future, Callisto Pasuwa looks set to be spared the axe today when the Dynamos management and the technical department meet to try and find solutions to the latest wave of turbulence that has rocked their boat.

Dembare will hold a crisis indaba in the capital this morning at which a number of problems haunting the Premiership champions are expected to be thrashed out and also clarified.

But the spotlight among the items on the agenda will no doubt fall on the fate of their three-time championship winning coach Pasuwa.

Pasuwa has been a target of immense speculation among those who believe he will be fired before Dynamos even reach the halfway stage of the season and that the coach should be sacrificed for the Harare giants' poor Champions League show and an inconsistent start to the season.

Dynamos once again fared dismally in the Champions League in which they failed to go beyond the second round for the fourth successive year with Elvis Chiweshe in 2010, having been the coach who last guided Dembare into the group stage of the continental inter-club tournament.

Pasuwa has presided over three of those failed campaigns while his friend and predecessor at Dynamos Lloyd Mutasa took charge of the 2011 campaign where Dembare also fell to MC Alger of Algeria at the second round stage.

That poor return of results in the Champions League seems to have led some within the Dynamos camp to question their coach's pedigree and the fact that Dembare have not had a consistent run of form in the opening six games of the Premiership season, has resulted in more pressure from those opposed to the gaffer.

Dynamos might be in eighth place on the log table but they are just three points behind leaders Highlanders having managed three wins and lost as many games.

However, the pressure on the coach has also been heightened by the apparent fallout between club chairman Kenny Mubaiwa and Pasuwa.

Club patron Webster Shamu had to address the players on the problems facing the club during their training season at the National Sports Stadium last Friday evening, put into perspective the challenges at the popular side and the significance of today's indaba.

Although Pasuwa, to his credit has also avoided being dragged into a public spat with his boss and the club management, the coach is expected to open up on the frustrations he has faced on and off the pitch in what promises to be a no holds barred meeting.

Today's indaba is also the first official club meeting between Mubaiwa and Pasuwa since the end of February and although there have been indications of simmering tensions, both parties are expected to bury their differences which many within the club's corridors have described as "untenable".

The crisis hitting the Harare giants also presents new board of directors chairman Bernard Marriot with the first real test of his leadership ever since he was voted the substantive boss of the club's founding fathers.

Marriot yesterday declined to publicly discuss the problems haunting Dynamos and insisted they were "still dealing with the matters internally".

"We are handling the issues within the Dynamos family and once we have finished we will speak out if the need arises but there is nothing unusual about the club holding regular meetings after matches.

"In any case our budget committee always meets each Monday after our home games so it doesn't mean that all those meetings will be about the coach or any particular individual," Marriot said.

Sources at Dynamos, however, said the club's founding fathers were against "the idea of rushing to axe a coach just six games into the season".

"Pasuwa's job is secure. All the other teams in the league always hold meetings whether they win or lose and likewise Dynamos also hold meetings but Pasuwa cannot always be the subject of those meetings every time.

"Everyone wants to win and when the team loses everyone must also share responsibility. There are a number of factors involved which have affected the team's performance too and these include the fact that more than half a dozen key players like Masimba Mambare and Tawanda Muparati are still out injured.

"So apart from reviewing the team's performance the meeting will assess what support  structures have been put in to help those who are injured to speedily recover and to also keep all the players motivated," the sources said.

Dynamos had also been hoping to immediately use returning striker Roderick Mutuma, but that move too hit a snag after the PSL ruled that he would have to wait for the mid-season window to open before he can become eligible to play.