FOR more reasons than one, the upcoming Harare Derby between sworn local football rivals CAPS United and Dynamos doesn’t have the usual appeal, at least in its build-up.

The two teams clash in a Castle Lager Premiership football match at the National Sports Stadium on Sunday.

But this is the first time the two giants are meeting with both camps mired in chaos.

While Dynamos are enjoying their best starting half of the season in years, they are battling a lot of ills in their house.

Executive chairman, Isaiah Mupfurutsa, is determined to see the back of coach Tonderai Ndiraya who was briefly suspended before reinstatement following a public outcry last week.

The players have not received winning bonuses since last year and they have taken the issue up with their representative board, the Footballers Union of Zimbabwe (FUZ).

As a result, Dynamos have, for the first time this season, gone for three games without posting a single victory.

They were held to a 1-1 draw by Bulawayo City at the National Sports Stadium a fortnight ago before their match against Highlanders was abandoned in added time while they were trailing 0-1. There was no glamour in them as well in their drab goalless draw against Herentals at the National Sports Stadium last Sunday as they failed to build the base on their preparation for the Harare derby.

CAPS United aren’t saints either.

They are in an intensive care unit under the leadership of Farai Jere and Nhamo Tutisani.

The team has battled unrest for the past four consecutive years as the two businessmen, who are clearly out of their depth, have failed to steady the ship. This is the first time that Makepekepe have struggled with financial demons for that long in their top-flight history.

Despite preaching what they cannot simply practice, Jere and Tutisani have failed to attract any meaningful sponsorship and the Green Machine are teetering towards total collapse and there are fears that the club might go the same way that former Premiership giants Black Aces went in 1999.

The once famous Black Aces just disappeared from the local football radar without trace following some maladministration and lack of solid sponsorship at the Highfield-based club.

The financial struggles that have seen CAPS United players threatening to boycott matches are starting to show in the field of play.

The Lloyd Chitembwe-coached charges have gone for five games without picking even a single point in the club’s worst run in a decade.

That even minnows like Bulawayo Chiefs and Cranborne Bullets can punch Makepekepe that hard is testimony all is not well at the club.

The capacity of the two businessmen, Jere and Tutisani, to run this club is largely in doubt given the period they have taken struggling to settle the very basics like paying the players in time. But having said all that, legends of the game, who have previously been involved in the Harare Derby, believe the players have a penchant to put all their struggles behind and give everything in games of this nature.

Stewart “Shutto” Murisa, who won the 1996 Soccer Star of the Year accolade while playing for CAPS United before his stint at Dynamos, said derby matches are always tricky and unpredictable.

“Look, a derby match carries with itself a lot of things. Some players can build a career from this single match and some can destroy theirs in this single match. It has nothing to do with secondary motivation like winning bonuses or anything. Each player motivates himself and they throw everything in it,” said Murisa.