At a time when they are still trying to apply some kind of emergency control in the wake of placard-raising fans calling for head coach Genesis Mangombe’s ouster, another crisis has befallen the troubled Harare giants.
Not only did they suffer a 1-0 loss to high-flying FC Platinum at Mandava Stadium yesterday but DeMbare fans were deprived of match updates on any of the club’s official social media pages.
DeMbare are active on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and X, formerly Twitter.
The lack of updates was as a result of Dynamos Media Officer —26-year-old Chioniso Mashakada, being ordered not to travel with the team, as she usually does.
A well-placed source privy to ongoings within the Dynamos executive told Soccer24 that the call made to Mashakada, was purely based on an order from board chairman Bernard Marriot Lusengo’s wife, so that the couple may replace her with their daughter Mercy Lusengo.
“The truth of the matter is that Chioniso has done nothing wrong. On the contrary, she has to be credited for the work she has done on those pages since she started managing them in 2021. The only problem is that the executive was instructed by the board chairman (Marriott’s) wife to get rid of her, so that their daughter came take up the position,” said the source.
“Even though their daughter does not hold a media qualification, the Lusengos are determined to have her as media officer but there are only two problems.
”The first problem is that Chioniso has a running contract with Dynamos, which runs up to next year, so the only way she could be relived of her duties is that we pay off the contract. However, the club is not prepared for that.
“The other problem is that Chioniso has all the passwords for those pages as she is the one who created them, so the executive is caught between a rock and and a hard place as they cannot force her to release them,” added the source.
Former Dynamos captain Justice “The Chief” Majabvi, who is the president of the Footballers Ambassadors of Zimbabwe, described the move to elbow out Mashakada as absurd.
“I don’t see what Chioniso did wrong. The young lady has tried to make it happen and bring a visible Dynamos on social media. So maybe someone is just being jealous or envying her work, which is ridiculous,” said Majabvi.
Also, replacing her with someone who is not qualified is not wise. It might affect the hype of the club on the social media, one has to know the job,” added Majabvi.
Efforts to get a comment from Dynamos chairman Moses Mainganidze were fruitless as his phone went unanswered.