The long winding road towards unravelling the royal mess besieging Mochudi Centre Chiefs’ starts today (Wednesday) as the team’s two rival committees face off at the Lobatse High Court.
Currently, Centre Chiefs is torn between two opposing axis of power, both of whom are claiming to be the legitimate office bearers of the club.
On the one side is the Earnest Molome and Raymond Tsheko led Mochudi Centre Chiefs Trust, which is currently in control and is recognized as the team’s official Executive Committee. On the other side is the Ramocha Tsieng axis, acting as the ‘Mochudi Centre Chiefs Society’ executive committee.
Both of the warring factions, along with their set of supporters have held respective ‘elective Annual General Meetings (AGM),’ at which leaders were retained.
The Ramocha-led group held the society’s Annual General Meeting on September 10, 2016 in Mochudi at Radikolo Junior Secondary School.
Thereafter, the faction sent out a press release stating that ‘the executive committee led by Ramocha was retained for another term in office to continue with their mandate of managing the affairs of the society.’
The Ramocha -Tsieng faction’s AGM was seen mostly as a counter to the Molome-Tsheko axis AGM which was held two months prior on the 16th of July at Molefhi Senior Secondary School.
Both factions have had running clashes, with the most recent one happening just about five months ago, when the Tsieng led faction authored a letter of demand to Botswana Football Association (BFA) requesting the country’s football governing body to deposit the league and mascom Top 8 prize monies into the society’s bank account.
The letter was met with scorn from the Tsheko-led ‘Mochudi Centre Chiefs Trust’ committee, who described the Tsieng led faction as “desperate” individuals who have gone all the way to disrupt the activities of the football club for their own singular interests.
In the aftermath of the never ending squabbles, the Ramocha Tsieng led then approached the courts to decide the legitimate committee to lead Chiefs.
Now, both factions will be looking to the high court to bring to an end their long running dispute that is threatening to tear ‘Magosi’ apart.
“The main issue that we want settled by the court is which of the two committees is legally entitled to run Centre Chiefs,” a source close to the court case revealed.
It is also hoped the court will decide whether the popular Kgatleng outfit should be run as a society or as a Trust.
The two parties could not reconcile on several occasions when the Registrar mediated advising the two to find a common ground. It was then that the case was referred to the council of arbitration which is not fully functional yet with the last option being court which Ramocha’s team resorted to.
The court date was confirmed by the two factions, both of whom believe they have a strong case. The Ramocha faction will be represented by Kambai Attorneys while the Molome-Tsheko axis will be represented by McBain Kaang Attorneys.
“This is just the beginning of the long road towards solving the current impasse at the club. I believe that with an attempt by the Registrar of Societies as well as the planned Arbitration to resolve the matter having failed, this is the only option left,” Chiefs Public Relations Officer (PRO) Clifford Mogomotsi said.
While the case is ‘affecting the team,’ Mogomotsi is however optimistic that it will finally bring stability to the Magosi stable.
