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Zimpapers Sports Hub
ZIMBABWE rugby player, Ngoni Chibuwe has vented his frustration at his Romanian club and newly-crowned champions CSM Constanta which has allegedly failed to pay players and coaches for five months.
In a Facebook post, the Mutare-born rugby star said his team, formed in 2021, has abandoned players and the coaching staff, and accused it of ruining young players’ promising rugby careers.
CSM Constanta won Romania’s topflight, the Liga National de Rugby.
Apart from non-payment of salaries, Chibuwe added that they have unpaid bonuses while meals were cut off and the club could not pay for their flights back home.
“Imagine winning the League and getting abandoned in a foreign land. Five months without salaries, two unpaid bonuses, meals cut off, risk of not spending Christmas with family because the club can’t pay your flights.
“I will not talk about the shoddy training facilities, getting injured, putting our bodies on the line just to be disrespected in this manner. (Lucky my savings are solid),” Chibuwe posted.
He added that the club is failing to take responsibility for the situation that the players and coaching staff find themselves in.
“Congratulations ‘CSM CONSTANTA’ for suffocating young people’s dreams, you can be proud of yourselves. Anyway BIG UP to my teammates, coaches, managers for your resilience. Real warriors.
“CSM Constanta has abandoned us, they don’t have solutions to the problems at hand and when you go to their offices they just play the victim card with no accountability at all, classic. Anyway on to the next chapter,” he concluded.
Chibuwe went to the Romania Supa Liga just before the 2019 rugby season after his marriage with Spanish giants, Getxo, ended prematurely.
Chibuwe, who hails from Dangamvura, Mutare, attended Mutanda Primary School in Sakubva, Mutare Boys’ High School and later Hillcrest College, before moving to South Africa to join the Sharks Academy.
His professional rugby career began in 2015 after he was drafted into the Sharks Sevens rugby side.
In the same year, he received his first Sables cap after being drafted into the squad for the Hong Kong Cup of Nations tournament.
Since then, his career has been on an upward trajectory as he went on to make the Sharks’ squad for the 2017 Currie Cup qualifiers.
He also established himself as a key member of the Cheetahs squad.
He has also featured for Old Georgians locally and South African club Durban Collegians.
Chibuwe has also been heavily involved in the development of Mutare rugby since launching his rugby academy, Hearts of Stones, in 2017.
Siphakeme .Mnindwa
