BANTU ROVERS have split into two separate entities with Methembe Ndlovu establishing a local Under-21 youth academy while former club general manager Wilbert Sibanda is now senior professional team president and chief executive officer.
BY FORTUNE MBELE
Sibanda will be working directly with international sponsor Peter Grieve, who is based in Boston, United States and has acquired a stake in a Gibraltar Division Two side Europa Point FC, where they hope to be sending players from Zimbabwe and to other clubs in Europe.
Although Ndlovu and Sibanda yesterday said the professional team and the academy will be working together indications from the Press conference yesterday suggested that Grieve (who was not present) had parted ways with Ndlovu and enlisted the services of Sibanda.
“For now we will be Bantu Rovers and Bantu Rovers Academy but as time progresses the professional team will have a different name, which has not yet been decided. Sibanda will make that announcement. The management structures for the two will be separate but there is absolutely positive spirit and collaboration between the academy and the professional team which in Zimbabwe will be headed by Sibanda,” Ndlovu said.
“We are announcing that we will be splitting the club into two. My partner, I have been working with (Grieve), will now be working with Wilbert on the senior team. Sibanda becomes president and chief executive officer of the senior team. I will be working with an academy, we will be introducing an Under-21 side that will be the academy to be headed by myself as president and CEO and Agent Sawu will be the technical director,” he said.
He added: “I am excited and I think I am a little bit proud of what we have achieved and happy for Sibanda to be stepping up to another level of becoming president and CEO of the professional side and I think with his commitment and aptitude and application over the past 10 years that we have worked together he has really earned it. I wish the professional side all the best and look forward to collaborating with them.”
Sibanda was not clear on the professional senior team participating in Division One next year after relegation from the PSL.
