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Sports Reporter
THE Harare Derby on Sunday at the National Sports Stadium will mark the first time that Harare giants Dynamos and CAPS United will plunge into battle while being sponsored by the same company and wearing kit provided by the same supplier. DeMbare and Makepekepe are bankrolled by NetOne and the big match on Sunday will be as much a battle for supremacy as much as it will be a showcase of the company’s involvement in domestic football where they also sponsor Highlanders.

NetOne poured $1 million into the three clubs to take care of the coaches and players salaries and signing-on fees although The Herald has been informed that the company new chief executive, Lazarus Muchenje, believes more should be poured into the three giants to make them competitive.

Muchenje, who assumed office at the beginning of the month, has been closely following the three clubs and took to Twitter, in his first weekend as NetOne boss, to congratulate Bosso and Makepekepe for their victories while urging DeMbare not to lose heart after a draw in Kariba.

The kit which the two Harare giants will use on Sunday was designed by local company, Roar, who believe they are in the initial stages of making a mark on the domestic football front before they venture onto the continent.

Recently, the company supplied the three teams with their playing kit and the one they gave Bosso has been receiving rave reviews from the Bulawayo giants’ fans.

‘’Not bad at all,’’ wrote Mbongeni Sibanda on one of the Bosso social media pages while Brian Gumbo said, ‘’we want replicas as soon as possible.’’

Nigel Gwara contributed to the debate, writing, ‘’I like this kit, it’s beautiful,’’ with Bee Yogo Machx saying, ‘’thumbs up to the sponsors, our guys look good.’’

Abidon Mugazambi thanked the sponsors with a message, ‘’this is good guys, thank you NetOne, let’s learn to appreciate,’’ while OZ Dube said, ‘’it looks great.’’

Bosso have enjoyed an encouraging start to life under Madinda Ndlovu and thousands of their fans ave been packing Barbourfields to support the club.

This week, the Highlanders supporters launched a social media campaign calling for the club’s followers to fill Barbourfields to capacity in their next league match.

The campaign has been receiving a lot of support on Twitter and it’s very likely that there will be a full house when Bosso play their next match on Sunday.

At the National Sports Stadium, old foes Dynamos and CAPS United will clash in the latest edition of the Harare Derby.

A Roar spokesman said they were committed to providing kits that will reflect the company n good light and they were happy that they were receiving a lot of goodwill from the fans.

‘’Initially, there were some comments passed which were not in good faith on social media suggesting that our kits were not good enough even when we had made it clear that the material that we had given the clubs was not what they were going to end up using as their playing kits,’’ he said.

‘’Now that the real kit has arrived we are seeing a change in perception and the comments are now encouraging.

‘’We have great plans in terms of where we want to take our brand, not only on the local scene, but also across the continent and we believe we will make a mark.

‘’It’s all about quality and we are happy that we are now getting some positive reviews. We will continue to try and improve and we realise that this is a direction that the Zambian football authorities have taken by going local in terms of securing their national teams kit.

‘’The good thing about all this is that it creates employment for the locals.’’