Ray Bande Senior Reporter AS the 2026 Castle Lager PSL season enters its denouement, Agama FC, Telone FC, Manica Diamonds and Triangle United find themselves mired in the relegation quagmire.…
Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
AS the 2026 Castle Lager PSL season enters its denouement, Agama FC, Telone FC, Manica Diamonds and Triangle United find themselves mired in the relegation quagmire.
With nine fixtures remaining, the predicament confronting these four institutions underscores a fundamental malaise in Zimbabwean football: systemic failure, rather than a mere dearth of talent.
This is not an aberration.
It is a recurring narrative.
The analysis of relegation
Certain clubs have become synonymous with the cyclical descent between the premiership and the lower divisions.
Hwange FC remain the unfortunate record-holders with five relegations since the turn of the millennium.
Their demotion at the conclusion of the 2025 campaign reaffirmed that fiscal fragility inevitably culminates in sporting decline.
TelOne FC have suffered relegation on two occasions, in 2013 and 2021. In both instances, austerity measures imposed by the parent entity precipitated salary arrears and an exodus of playing personnel. Triangle United, once the preeminent force in Lowveld football, endured relegation in 2018. The subsequent contraction of sugar industry funding has left the club bereft of the structural robustness that underpinned its earlier success.
Manica Diamonds, having enjoyed three seasons in the upper echelons since their 2019 elevation, now confront their second consecutive relegation battle.
The Mutare outfit is discovering how precipitously fortunes can wane when sponsorship becomes attenuated.
Agama FC, in only their debut season in the top-flight, are similarly adrift. Their ascent was predicated on ambition, but not on the institutional scaffolding requisite for top-tier survival.
The aetiology of decline
Three interlocking factors account for this perennial crisis:
Pecuniary delinquency and eroded morale
Former Premier Soccer League coach, Rodwell Dhlakama, who endured relegation with Hwange and GreenFuel FC on the bounce after joining the Ethanol Boys halfway through the season and then Hwange with 15 matches remaining, said: “At times, when remuneration is in arrears for months, a player’s preoccupation shifts from tactical execution to domestic solvency.”
All four embattled clubs in the current domestic Premiership have reportedly defaulted on salary obligations this season, a development that has corroded motivation and cohesion.
Technical instability and poaching of personnel
The incessant rotation of technical staff has vitiated any semblance of continuity. Compounding the problem is the practice of mid-season poaching, wherein struggling clubs lose their coaches to marginally more stable rivals.
Agama: Paul Chimalizeni → Takawanda Jongwe → Godfrey Tamirepi → Anderson Phiri. Four coaches in one season.
Telone: Herbert Maruwa, swooped by Manica Diamonds mid-season → Saul Chaminuka → Joel Lupahla.
Manica Diamonds: Tafadzwa Mashiri → Albert Mbano → Kifton Kadurira → Herbert Maruwa.
Triangle: Genesis Mangombe → Lloyd Chitembwe → Alexio Sigion → Genesis Mangombe, recalled after Sigion’s departure.
The net effect of all this is tactical incoherence. Players are compelled to assimilate disparate philosophies within a single campaign, an untenable proposition in a league of such competitiveness.
Overreliance on corporate patronage
Telone, Triangle, Manica Diamonds and Agama remain functionally dependent on single-source sponsorship.
When the sponsoring entity encounters financial headwinds, football operations are the first to be excised. The absence of diversified revenue streams, merchandising, or viable youth commercialisation exacerbates this vulnerability.
A stark admonition
“This predicament transcends mere playing personnel,” asserted Dhlakama.
“Agama possess capable footballers. Manica Diamonds were title protagonists two seasons ago. However, in the absence of robust systems — encompassing prudent budgeting, medical infrastructure, scouting networks, and punctual remuneration — relegation becomes an inevitability.
“Consider Hwange: five seasons relegation experiences. Until club licencing is rigorously enforced and teams are compelled to operate as autonomous commercial entities rather than corporate appendages, this cycle will persist.”
The final arbiter
The ensuing nine rounds of league matches will determine which clubs go down to Division One. Yet mere survival will prove pyrrhic if the underlying structural deficiencies remain unaddressed. For in the PSL, relegation is seldom consummated on the final day.
It is ratified in the boardroom, six months prior.
“As a coach, I can tell you relegation is never decided on the pitch in August. It is decided in January when budgets are not approved, in March when salaries are late, and in May when you lose three key players because another team can pay them.
“We are busy changing coaches as if that is the magic wand. At Agama alone we have had four coaches this season. How do you expect players to learn a new philosophy every two months? Football needs consistency, and consistency comes from a stable system off the field.
“Until our clubs stop operating like departments and start operating like businesses, we will keep seeing Hwange, TelOne, Triangle and now Agama in this same position. Pay players on time, give the technical team time, and invest in youths. That is the only way out.
“The problem we have in the PSL is that we treat symptoms instead of the disease. A coach is fired, players are blamed, but nobody asks why morale is low in the first place. Nine times out of 10, it is because the basics are not being done — transport, medicals, bonuses,” said Dhlakama.
Dhlakama bemoaned the hiring and firing of the same set of coaches as a perceived solution to relegation woes.
“Look at the coach movements this year, Herbert Maruwa was at TelOne, then he was swooped by Manica Diamonds. Joel Lupahla goes to TelOne.
“It becomes musical chairs. No club is building anything. You cannot develop a team when the bench is a revolving door.
“Company teams must understand this: when the company struggles, football should not die. You need independent structures, sponsorships, and academy sales.
“If not, you are just waiting for the next relegation. That is what is happening to Agama, TelOne, Manica Diamonds and Triangle United right now,” he said. The veteran gaffer said panic is what leads to changes of coaches.
“Players don’t lose motivation because they are lazy. They lose it because rent is due and the club has not paid in three months. That is systems failure.
“Changing coaches four times in one season is not a strategy. It is panic. And panic is what relegates teams. Look at Agama, TelOne, Manica Diamonds and Triangle United — same story, different years.”
“We need to professionalise. A club must be able to survive even if the sponsor pulls out. Until then, we will continue to bury good teams because of bad administration,” he said.
In a separate interview, UK-based former Manica Diamonds administrator, Owen ‘Yaya’ Sango, summed it up all by saying: “The question is, are they failing as an institution or is the coach simply failing to produce results?
“That is what should determine whether the coach gets sacked or not. If the problem is institutional, changing the coach won’t solve anything. But if the institution is doing everything right, and the coach is failing to deliver results, then a change of coach may be justified.”
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