Bulawayo Chiefs

Bulawayo Chiefs share a city, and only a city, with Highlanders — the older, more decorated club whose supporters treat matches against the Ninjas as the "City of Kings and Queens derby," a fixture that carries weight in Bulawayo whatever league position either side occupies. Chicken Inn provides the other rivalry, less bound up in local identity but no less contested on the pitch.

The club took shape in 2012, backed by the miner Lovemore Sibanda, who has remained its principal financier ever since. That reliance on one man's money has cut both ways: in 2022 and 2023, unpaid wages pushed players into strike action, and a court case followed over prize money the club owed from its Chibuku Super Cup win. That win, in 2022, was the first major trophy in the club's history — a 1-0 defeat of Herentals that gave the Ninjas silverware to set against Highlanders' longer roll of honour.

Zimbabwe's top flight has not been a settled home for Bulawayo Chiefs. They went up in 2013 and again in 2017 after winning the Southern Region Division One title both times, then dropped back down in 2024 following a loss to Manica Diamonds, only to win promotion again in 2025. Luveve Stadium, the ground they took over from AmaZulu Sports Club in 2022, has stayed constant through those swings between divisions.

In June 2020, while the game elsewhere in the country was largely dormant, Bulawayo Chiefs opened an online shop for club merchandise, the first Zimbabwean side to do so. It was a small commercial step for a club still working out how to pay its players on time, and it sat awkwardly next to the financial strain that would surface two years later. Through all of it, the fixture that still defines the club's season is the one against Highlanders, played for the city rather than for the league table.