Tadious Manyepo
Zimpapers Sports Hub
SAUL CHAMINUKA has suggested referees could be conspiring to push Dynamos out of the Premiership, questioning the manner in which they are handling the ailing giants’ matches.
DeMbare are in a tight corner, dangling dangerously on 17th place on the Premier Soccer League log table with a pathetic 15 points from 21 matches.
The storied former champions have never shifted gears right from the onset of the 2025 sea-son, prompting club bosses to replace coach Lloyd “Mablanyo” Chigowe with Chaminuka two months ago.
Just like Chigowe, Chaminuka has also found the going tough, struggling to transform the team and ease their relegation worries although the quality of their football has marginally changed for the better.
Pressure has inevitably mounted on journeyman coach Chaminuka.
And yesterday the former Kwekwe United gaffer exploded lamenting how coaches are gagged from calling out poor refereeing yet the officials continue to determine the outcome of matches.
Dynamos lost 1-0 against Simba Bhora last Saturday, conceding the goal with just three minutes before time.
Former Dynamos midfielder Junior Makunike scored the solitary goal to squeeze the team that gave him fame against the walls.
Chaminuka has shifted the blame on the match officials.
He claims that by the time he scored the goal, Makunike should have long been red-carded “as he kept on kicking out my players five, six times.”
He feels the Glamour Boys should have scored a goal or two but the officials always stood on their way.
“I should be frank about this. It’s now very difficult to coach these players because we are playing against the referees not our opponents alone,” said Chaminuka.
“You spend time coaching players, working on tactics and the like to implement on match-days.
“But come match-day, you are facing both the opposition and the refs.
“That’s very unfortunate. It’s not helping our football in any way.
“Maybe there is a conspiracy against us. If you talk, you are sanctioned.
“I came to Dynamos aiming to improve how the team plays and when you think you have done that, the referees stand in the way, that’s bad.
“We lost against Ngezi Platinum Stars in pretty much the same fashion. They were awarded a penalty just out of nothing. The same happened again when we played FC Platinum. It’s hard and it hurts.”
He added “As a team we have our tactical flaws and areas we are not good at but let teams beat us without being aided by referees. We played TelOne the last time and we were beaten cleanly.
“We tried to come back but we wasted our chances. So, where we lose genuinely, we will acknowledge.
“The South African league has improved because the referees have improved as well.”
Now hanging down the cliff, Dynamos need more than just complaints to lift their game and play with much better consistency in order to stand a chance of surviving the chop at the end of the season.
DeMbare host equally-struggling Manica Diamonds at Rufaro tomorrow knowing that they have to start clearing these hurdles as they begin operation survival.