BONGANI MALUNGA
Mochudi Centre Chiefs’ once tumultuous power struggle at management level is set to end on August 5 when the club will hold an elective Annual General Meeting. The mandate and purpose of the AGM is to review and possibly ammend their constitution before eventually electing a permanent executive committee.
The club’s factions have been currently hibernated by a court order which instructed the club to be run by a transitional committee. This publication understands that the temporary committee was eventually elected on June 30 and it consists of Chris Molomo (chairman), Pollen Makgane (vice chairman), Ruben Lokorwe, Lebogang Seboni, Raymond Tsheko and Ramocha Tsieng (additional members).
The club has been on a steady decline in terms of management as seen through administrative problems that have seen the team lose key and high profile players in the last few years as well as allegedly struggling to pay players last season.
Chiefs were, at one point, one of the big spending teams in the league as they were bankrolled by Maclean Letshwiti, Ernest Molome and eventually Sayed Jamali. Factional wars have restricted Molome’s influence while businessmen Letshwiti and Jamali left the club last year.
The aforementioned businessmen were influencial in making Chiefs a force in the local league, however, their departure unsurprisingly coincided with the club’s decline last season.
As a result the club went through financial problems and could no longer compete with other big clubs in the transfer market. The club’s infamous policy of not giving players sign on fees but rather gratuities was one of the key occurences that indicated their financial difficulties.
It appears a new era for the Kgatleng side will start on the already mentioned August 5 AGM. The aspiring leaders have challenged the previous executive committee and argued that the constitution and their management style were outdated, it remains to be seen if the factions’ power struggle will indeed end.