DEMBARE CRISIS SPILLS INTO THE BOARDROOM

DEMBARE CRISISEddie Chikamhi Sports Reporter
A FRESH showdown is looming at Dynamos as a clique of the club’s founding founders led by Ernest Kamba yesterday revived their battle for the ownership of the country’s biggest and most successful football club.

They have called for a crisis meeting next week to map the way forward.

Kamba, who claims to be the bona fide secretary of the DeMbare board of directors, told The Herald that the current leadership led by Bernard Marriot was illegally running the team under the banner of Dynamos Football Club Private Limited, a company that owns the club.

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Dynamos are reeling in crisis following a poor start to the season.

The Glamour Boys have had their worst start to the season in many years and Kamba yesterday said they are calling on all former Dynamos players to a meeting on May 28 to put their house in order.

He said claims by Marriot this week that founder members who played for the club between 1963 and 1968 make up the board of directors were misleading and came just short of accusing the former winger of hijacking the club for his personal benefit.

Kamba said members of the board who were voted into office when the club held its last annual meeting on June 7, 2008, should be running the affairs of the club.

The elected board members included George Shaya, Isdore Sagwete, Peter Huni, Willard Sarupinda, Isaac Nhema, Patrick Amato Dzvene (late), Cremio Mapfumo, Freddy Mkwesha (late), Richard Chiminya (late) and Kamba himself.

“These are the bona fide members of the Dynamos board which were elected on the day with the exception obviously of the deceased.

“As far as we know, there has never been any other meeting nor any other board that was elected apart from this one.

“This is the board that is registered at the Registrar of Companies.

“The coming in of the current board was not aboveboard. I would like to challenge them to produce the minutes of the meeting when their board was elected.

“There was a misrepresentation of facts which we think happened at the Registrar of Companies. We want to consult with the Registrar. We are in the process of finding out how to go about the issue and we would want to engage the police to help with the investigations,” said Kamba.

He said Marriot strategically pushed out the founding members and surrounded himself with people who were not involved with Dynamos during the period stipulated by the constitution.

Kamba claimed that among the people in the current board, only Marriot was the surviving member of that period while there are about eight others who have been frozen out.

Previous attempts to wrestle control of the club have not been successful.

Kamba claims that his faction only stopped their attempts after their members were assaulted by hooligans.

“We are not here to fight. Our concern is to see the club doing well because that is our industry. That club has got to take care not only of the living former players, even the late have to be taken care of. That is what the constitution says.

“So we cannot take care of that big family with the funds from the football club. Our eyes are fixed on promoting Dynamos Private Limited Company. We want to go into business so that we will be able to look after the Dynamos family.

“Our eyes are not on the gate-takings, even the team itself needs assistance from the company. People might think that we want to get some gate-takings, but we know that those gate-takings can’t even sustain the present team.

“So we don’t want to dwell on things that don’t develop the company. We have got a lot of people who would want to assist us going into big business.

“The way forward now? This has always been in the pipeline. Now with the situation as it is, the team not performing well, we just have to salvage what is left of the glory of the club. We are calling for an urgent general meeting of all former players to be held on May 28.

“We are inviting everyone, all the stakeholders and if the current board is part of the stakeholders they should present themselves. If they don’t come whatever the majority decides goes, as long as we have got a quorum.”

Kamba said Marriot had deliberately distorted the ownership of the club by misrepresenting facts at the Registrar of Companies that the board elected in 2008 had resigned en masse.

He said they have to revisit the constitution and hold fresh elections for a new board.

The current board comprised of Marriot as chairman, vice chairman Shacky Chitimbe, Owen Chandamale, Charles Gwatidzo, Norman Maziti, Lazarus Magwenzi, Noel Musariyarwa and Freddy Muzuva.

Kamba said the constitution says elections should be held after every five years and was critical of the current board which he accused of personalising the club.

He said there are former players who featured for the Glamour Boys between 1963 and 1968 like George Shaya, Willard Sarupinda, Isdore Sagwete, Joseph Tsuro, Mukomondo and Kamba who have not been consulted.

“What happened was that when it was still Dynamos Football Club we had the Electoral College which consisted of former players. And when it was turned into a company, the Electoral College became the shareholders.

“From the shareholders, that’s where the board of directors come from. So we are supposed to have an AGM of shareholders where a board is selected to serve five years.

“The elected board appoints the executive to run the club, which is the tradition because the executive has always comprised of people who were not involved with playing football,” said Kamba.

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