The Sunday Mail
HE led the Harare City women’s volleyball team to every trophy that was on offer last season but Leadme Daniel Muhlohla’s contract is not being renewed.
‘Girls dzeTonaz’, as the municipal side is known, are set for a maiden appearance at the Africa Volleyball Club Championship in Egypt in March on the back of their impressive show last year.
With Leadme living up to his name, the team won the Harare Volleyball Association League title, National League crown and Zone VI Championships. However, that was not enough to earn the coach a new contract with sources claiming that Muhlohla is paying the price of clashing with the “executive’s favourite player”, Rutendo Chirikure.
“At the Zone Six championships in Bulawayo last month, the coach wanted Rutendo dropped from the team because of indiscipline but the bosses shot down his proposal.
“Things were never the same after that episode and it became a case of waiting to see who would go first – the coach or the player,” said a club official.
Muhlohla was told that the club will not be renewing his contract because of financial constraints but the coach is not buying that line.
“They are trying to hide behind that but I know the truth, everyone knows the truth,” he said.
“This all happened after I told them I didn’t want this player (Chirikure) in the team because of several cases of indiscipline.
“I knew that it would affect the whole team, especially with a big tournament coming but the executive had other ideas. But life has to go on and as they say you cannot keep a good man down.”
Harare City volleyball chairman Bosman Matengarufu insists that the Chirikure incident has nothing to do with the decision to fire the coach.
“It has nothing to do with that; the executive met and decided against the renewal of his contract and we might not renew contracts for the rest of the guys too.
“As City of Harare we do a lot of social responsibility activities and our finances are not only for sport so we are not that strong financially at the moment,” said Matengarufu.
