Zimpapers Logo

Tadious Manyepo Sports Reporter

GIANTS Dynamos were extravagant enough and gobbled in excess of US$140 000 on new signings last season, The Herald can reveal.

The Glamour Boys have been struggling to find themselves and they were so keen to rediscover their clout by bringing in a number of new faces at the Castle Lager Premiership football club last year. Armed with financial resources from their partners Sakunda Holdings, DeMbare went on a massive recruitment spree at the start of last season, bringing in over seven new faces, including three more foreigners.

They had five foreigners in their ranks, the highest by a local Premiership team last term.

With Cameroonian Albert Eonde and Ghanaian Sylvester Appiah having already joined them, the Glamour Boys took three more aboard — Alex Orotomal of Nigeria as well as the Ghana duo of Emmanuel Paga and Martin Ofori.

All but one of them have since left the team together with an array of other locals, some of them part of the new recruits that had been roped in last year, and Dynamos can only count the costs.

With the three foreigners each putting pen to paper for about US$10 000, some local players were floating in the region of US$8 000.

And at the end of the signing spree, the Glamour Boys had spent something in the region of US$140 000.

But there was nothing to justify the extravagant spending at the end of the season last year with the Glamour Boys exiting the Chibuku Super Cup in the quarter-finals and finishing the league race third behind FC Platinum and Chicken Inn. An authoritative source at Dynamos revealed to The Herald yesterday that the club had to go deeper into their coffers to make sure they signed new players last year.

And this, according to the source, is the reason why executive chairman, Isaiah Mupfurutsa, and coach, Tonderai Ndiraya, were booted out of the team at the end of a barren spell.

The Dynamos leadership saw it fit to oust Mupfurutsa, as head of the executive, and Ndiraya as head of the technical team, for failing the club in a year they had spent possibly the biggest signing-on funds in the entire league.

“I can tell you that the club (Dynamos) spent more than US$140 000 in bringing in new recruits last season. “It’s a huge amount, especially considering that the team failed to win any silverware,” said the source.

“Obviously something had to give. People have been saying Ndiraya deserved some more time at Dynamos and they were a bit justified if one looks at the bigger picture. But after he had pressed the management that the team should sign so and so players for such hefty amounts and then failing to deliver, he had to be sacrificed.  “It was actually a contested decision but after looking at such things, everyone agreed that it was time he paved the way for others.

“That is the same thing which happened to Mupfurutsa. He was the head of the executive and the leadership felt he had been given sufficient time and support at the helm and still failing to deliver any silverware.”

Dynamos also lost in the Presidential Independence Trophy final against Highlanders at Barbourfields.

That means they lost in three competitions, including that Independence Trophy in which they competed against just one team. The Uhuru Cup proved a tall order inspite of the scintillating incentives dangled by their principal sponsors Sakunda Holdings.  

And the decision by new coach Herbert “Jompano’’ Maruwa to recommend the off-loading of players this week was largely driven by the fact that most of the players who were hired last season failed to step up to the plate.

But, with at least 13 players leaving the fray at the Harare football giants, that could mean even more spending as new players are expected to come and fill the vacancies.

As part of their ongoing marriage with Sakunda Holdings, Dynamos have US$60 000 for signing-on fees alone.