Harare City Chairman, Alois Mosepe, says premier league clubs should watch out for Harare City as they are one of the best teams in the league this year.
Mosepe said the team will this year compete for everything on offer together with the traditional giants of Zimbabwean football despite key changes in their technical set up.
Harare City are under new head coach, Mike Madzivanyika, following new Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) and Premier Soccer League (PSL) standards which stipulate that all premier league coaches will need a Confederation of African Football (CAF) A coaching licence beginning this year.
“They [Harare City’s title winning chances] are as good as everybody else’s. Everybody else will be fighting for the championship, the same goes with us. Everybody else will be fighting for trophies, we’ll [also] be fighting for those trophies. May the best team win, and we believe we are one of the best teams.
“[We are] looking forward to a good season, we have prepared enough and we think we’ll do better than last year.
“[This season] we aim to do good. Very good. Whatever is on offer, we’ll compete for it effectively,” he told Soccer24.
Mosepe said despite building a hopeful side this year, Harare City have also put in place advanced junior structures which ensure a steady development of both club football and football at a national level for the coming years.
“We have our own strategic plans. We have built our structures for the juniors, we have a very impressive development strategy starting with the U13 particularly on the male side. We have the U13 [and] we also have the women’s team in the Northern Region. So that’s a starting point for the girl child. But for the main side (men’s team), this is our year for consolidation. Because our nursery this year is in division one, the Harare City Cubs, which was promoted from division two last year. So the consolidation process is going on.
Mosepe also hailed the new USD$ 5m sponsorship package recently unveiled by Castle Lager which is set to take club football woes on a three-year jigsaw.
He added that Zimbabwean football legged behind in sponsorship but not in development.
“We want to thank Delta [Beverages], the economy is not performing well but they have stood by us. And we want to thank them very much for the gesture. Whatever little we get from Delta will help in the promotion and development of soccer in this country. But of course we want more.
“The South African League (ABSA Premier League) is not better than us in terms of soccer development, it is better than us in terms of sponsorship. And we would ask those companies that are doing well in spite of the economic problems to join hands with Delta and come with more sponsorship,” he said.