MBABANE 24 January 2025): A 5-year dalliance experimenting with private ownership of big-league soccer clubs has not worked for Mbabane Swallows and Mbabane Highlanders. Both are now apparently back as ‘People’s Clubs,’ following an ownership formula that has ended in frustration.
Swallows released a 10 January statement announcing a transformation phase and restructuring of the club. Their Patrons have taken over full control of the club and its management functions, abandoning the company that owns the club since Gamedze’s death in 2018.
That same week, Highlanders too announced they are parting ways with their Director, and reverting back to a People’s Club. Highlanders have experienced serious internal issues since the start of the Premier League Season in August 2024. They too started experimenting with private ownership since 2019.
Swallows were first to venture into private club ownership. Soccer is capital intensive. Clubs who depend on gate takings are perennially short of funds and need regular cash injections, often from friendly donors. In the case of the Birds, their benefactor was one of their own, former striker Victor “Maradona” Gamedze who had made it big in the technology business. As a good businessman, it was not long before he convinced the club patrons to transfer the club into a company structure by which he could manage its control.
Mbabane Highlanders watched in awe as their neighbour and major rivals soared to levels they had never reached before. It was clear that under the steering hand of a strong man with clear vision worked wonders.
By 2019 Highlanders had struck a deal contracting South African wealthy businessman Ally Kgomongwe who poured money into the club, buying them a bus, setting them up in an up-market club-house and professionalizing the team with regular players’ salaries. Under his leadership Highlanders secured the 2019 Telecoms Cup and were runners up to the Ngwenyama Cup that year.
Covid-19 was particularly destructive to the entertainment, leisure and sports industry as health regulations closed stadiums and forbade gathering of crowds. For two years, clubs struggled under the festering conditions. By the time soccer was opened to the public, Kgomongwe had experienced the frustration of supporting a whole club that did nothing. Like Gamedze at Swallows, he too demanded incorporation of the club into a company in which he could take majority shares and absolute control. Highlanders Patrons had no choice and consented to incorporate the Club.
Relationships that underlie management practices of consensus and gentlemen’s agreements make it possible for the flexibility essential for controlling community assets. Decisions and direction is often driven more by the energy of individuals and groups than the logic and accountable calculations required for corporate controls. It’s not easy to retrofit corporate culture onto the informality of Swazi communal arrangements to create functional effective systems. It has proved difficult in politics, in government and in business. At Swallows, after Gamedze passed away, the community systems coalesced around the ideas of fining someone with money who could support the club without making too many demands. That someone became Bishop Bheki Lukhele who stepped in in 2019.
He stepped back, he says, after realizing that the other club structures appreciated him only as an ATM Machine that produced the money to do what was necessary with limited decision-making rights.
“When I came into the club I found Swallows had nothing. There was nothing in the bank. They did not even have a jersey. I had to start from scratch.”
“The Club had a team bus was on hire purchase with the banks. I suggested that the hire purchase agreement be transferred from the club company to the club so that I could pay for it, but this didn’t happen. I later found that the bus was in arrears of E465 thousand. We were preparing for a league game the next day when the bank repossessed the bus.”
Lukhele was soon to be exposed to the realities of the architecture of people’s clubs and the close-knit brotherhood of inner circles around which power in the club revolves. His first shock at Swallows was to realize that only his money earned him relevance and importance in the club. Otherwise whether he knew or consented, club decisions could be taken.
“When I came into the club, Nyanga Hlophe was the coach. Next thing he was gone. I can’t tell you what happened to him. No one told me anything. When I tried to find out, I learnt that a decision had been taken in my interest because of a notion that that I would want to work with my own people. This was not true.”
This would not be the last surprise.
“Subsequently team management recruited Janza from Zambia. They highly recommended him to me as the best man to move the team forward. But shortly after his arrival, they set upon him, and threatened him with violence and eventually fired him in breach of contract. I had to carry the cost of contract termination.
“Next was Christopher Enim. They recommended him too but after he played a few games they attacked him. He had to run to the Nhlangano police for protection in the violence, some cars were damaged. Again I had to pay the costs.”
Eventually, I recruited Caleb Ngwenya in the confidence that they would respect him better because they knew him well since he was a Swazi. Indeed, that seemed to work.
“They originally asked me to take care of players’ salaries. On that basis I understood my financial exposure and budget, not knowing that I would be required to pay so many other costs.
Lukhele said he decided to leave the club after he realized the club stalwarts treated him as a cash-cow that they would milk dry and were dealing with him in bad faith. There were many instances when we would discuss issues and agree, only to discover that the other party were not transparent about their reasons and pursued hidden agendas.
“When I came into the club, it rented a clubhouse for E15,000. As soon as I came in, the rent shot up to E25,000 per month. Similarly, the club office rental shot up to E10,000. I was surprised and wondered if this is how you treat someone from whom you have asked for help?”.
That was the main reason that convinced me I could not continue this way; hence my decision to step back and step down.
When I reviewed by experiences with the club, I reached a decision to quit, and resigned in January 2024.
Kgomongwe too experienced similar challenges at Mbabane Highlanders. Club structures consistent with the profile of a community club continued to exist side by side with the new company structure, and refused to be ignored or undermined.
“Eventually I realized that the club was divided. There was one faction for Ali and another for Musa Masuku (the acting CEO Ali appointed to run the club”). Kgomongwe eventually retreated back to Pretoria and is now involved in soccer in Botswana. In his absence, Highlanders patrons reportedly convened a high-level meeting on 8 January and resolved to resume full ownership of the club.
Swallows has been quick to adapt to their new arrangements and have appointed a technical task team to oversee progress of the club. The test of their effectiveness came with the ongoing Ngwenyama Cup, where they won their first game against Ludzeludze Killers.
Highlanders are yet to find their feet under their new arrangement. When their test came in the Ngwenyama Cup for which they were runners up in 2018 and 2019, they came up short, and had to bow to the superior power of a lower division Lozitha Spurs who thrashed them 3-1.
The last word is however yet to be heard from the companies that legally own the clubs. Swallows have indicated that anyone aggrieved by their decision to restructure is welcome to meet them in court. Mbabane Highlanders is still awaiting response from Kgomongwe. Whether or not he will quietly cut his losses and walk away, is yet to be seen.
Jm/today/24.1.2025
