Kenny Mubaiwa
Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
DYNAMOS Football Club faces its worst crisis in history, which also threatens its very existence following revelations that the 1999 decision to register the company Dynamos Pvt Limited was done without following due process, rendering all decisions done by subsequent leadership null and void.
Even the signing of players, appointment of the Dynamos FC executive committee and any other actions done by the office bearers appointed by the leadership of the Dynamos Pvt Limited are not legally binding. According to the 1963 Dynamos constitution, the resolution to form a company in 1999 ought to have been made during a properly convened meeting of founder and life members.
Dynamos’ members are the 20 founding members and former players of the club.
“Minutes of that meeting where members would have agreed to form a company, would then have been taken to the registrar of companies but all this never happened,” said life member Uzziel Mankola.
The Dynamos Pvt Limited leadership is responsible for the appointment of the Dynamos Football Club leadership including the present one led by Kenny Mubaiwa.
A top Bulawayo lawyer said the legality of the formation of Dynamos Pvt Limited must be challenged at law first before anyone can declare the 1999 action null and void.
“If an order is then given that the 1999 action was illegal then a Pandora’s box would have been opened because all the decisions that would have been done from 1999 until the day of the declaration can be successfully challenged at law. You surely can’t build a castle in the air and expect it to stand, it will crumble,” said the lawyer.
Dynamos Pvt Limited was registered by the late Morrison Sifelani and Bernard Marriot who is now the chairman of the Dynamos board of directors.
In August 2006, the then Supreme Court judge, Justice Luke Malaba ruled that Dynamos must be run using the 1963 constitution.
Said Justice Malaba;
“The 1963 Dynamos Football Club constitution has not been lawfully amended and remains the only lawful constitution of the club.
‘‘The ownership and management of Dynamos Football Club shall continue in terms of the 1963 constitution until such time as it is lawfully repealed or amended.”
The 1999 move to form a company was done using the flawed 10 May 1990 constitutional amendments by an improperly convened meeting.
Reads Justice Malaba’s 2006 judgment;
“Rules of a club can be altered or added to only in accordance with the express provision of its constitution. In this case there is incontrovertible evidence of the fact that the procedure for the amendment of the constitution of the club prescribed in clause 15 by its members was not followed. It was admitted by the secretary general of Zifa in the opposing affidavit that there were persons who were not members of the club who attended and voted at the meeting of 10 May 1990.”
Justice Malaba said the members of the club had agreed in clause 15 of the 1963 constitution that a decision to amend any part of the constitution to be valid and binding on them, had to be made at an annual general meeting of founder members and former players by the chairman of the executive committee of the club by written notice served on each member entitled to attend and vote 40 days before that meeting.
“It is, in my judgment, particularly important for the stability of such a club that, when fundamental matters such as amendments or additions to the rights and liabilities of members are undertaken, there be full compliance with all the requirements of the rules to avoid occurrence of the kind of squabbles that have rocked the club.
It appears to me that, upon a construction of the provisions of clause 15 of the 1963 constitution, a meeting which was not an annual general meeting of founder members and former players, convened by an outsider like Zifa and attended by non-members of the club, was a void and unauthorised act. It would not have been a properly convened meeting for the purpose of effecting a valid amendment to the 1963 constitution. The rule is that failure to give due notice to even one member of the club who was entitled to attend and vote at the meeting renders it a mere nullity,” said Justice Malaba.