HIGHLANDERS and Dynamos have been making frantic efforts to persuade petroleum giants Sakunda Holdings to sign another sponsorship contract with the two Premier Soccer League sides with the current deal lapsing on Sunday.
Sources told NewsDay Sport that some of the club officials have had meetings with the Sakunda bosses on a possible new sponsorship deal.
Long-time Highlanders benefactor, Retired Colonel Tshinga Dube, engaged Sakunda owner Kudakwashe Tagwirei at a social and informal platform and was assured that the petroleum giant will continue funding the two sides.
The source said Dube was attending the Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga’s wedding in Harare when he made the social call on Tagwirei.
“Colonel Tshinga attended Vice-President Chiwenga’s wedding at the weekend and that is where he met with Tagwirei and informed the Sakunda boss that the Highlanders leaders were worried anout their financial future. He was told that the company is still going to sponsor the club. It was just a social call and not anything official from Highlanders but Colonel Dube was assured that Sakunda will continue bankrolling Bosso. It’s just that Sakunda have not come up with an official position,” the source said.
Dube is behind several Bosso projects including the gold mine at Inyathi and has previously donated a bus to the Bulawayo giants.
He is believed to be the man behind the Highlanders’ leadership meeting with President Emmerson Mnangagwa in 2021 where the President assured to assist the club in their mining venture, amid allegations from sections of the club membership that the institution was captured by Zanu PF.
Another source said that in the past two weeks, Highlanders officials have been on bended knees as they engaged Sakunda but nothing concrete has come up yet.
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Dynamos are also said to be in contact with Sakunda.
Highlanders’ spokesperson Nozibelo Maphosa only said: “Unfortunately, we are not at liberty to disclose to the public our ongoing boardroom engagement with our stakeholders, and current sponsors are no exception.”
Dynamos’ chief executive officer Jonathan Mashingaidze was not reachable on his mobile phone number and so was Sakunda Holdings programmes co-ordinator Nqobile Magwizi.
Sakunda, Highlanders and Dynamos entered a US$5 million three-year deal where the petroleum giant would pay the teams’ players and staff salaries including allowances, signing-on fees and administration expenses.
Highlanders were struggling to pay salaries at the time until the intervention of Utande Internet Services who announced a salaries-based partnership with the Bulawayo giants.
The funding from Utande was re-directed to other expenses when Sakunda came on board, an agreement made by the relevant partners.
The Sakunda sponsorship package saw the company providing US$420 000 towards the payment of salaries for players and the technical team and each club also received US$60 000 each year as signing-on fees.
There was a huge incentive to win the league title with a promise of a further US$200 000 for the club that would have won the league title and US$150 000 bonus for qualifying into the Caf Champions League.
