Proteas in November
The Ministry of Youth and Sports has turned down Football Association of Malawi (Fam)’s proposal to take full responsibilities of Malawi national football team coaches.
This follows a meeting Minister of Youth and Sports Uchizi Mkandawire, Malawi National Council of Sports officials had separately with Fam and Netball Association of Malawi (Nam) at Capital Hill, Lilongwe on Thursday.
This means national team coaches will no longer be government employees.
Spokesperson for the Ministry, Macmillan Mwale, said while the government acknowledges its obligations that include funding senior teams, the move to let associations handle issues of coaches has been necessitated by change in policy.
“The Ministry’s stand is that Fam should be signing contracts with national team coaches directly. The government can be supporting through grants that go to the association,” Mwale said.
Previously, national football coaches had direct contracts with the government.
Former Flames coach Meck Mwase was getting his perks as a government employee.
Patrick Mabedi and Deklerk Msakakuona were also on the government’s payroll as Under-20 and U-17 coaches, respectively.
The two last coaches for the Flames, Mario Marinica and Patrick Mabedi, were getting their perks from Fam.
Fam President Fleetwood Haiya described the meeting as fruitful.
“Firstly, we are very grateful that we were invited by the minister. We discussed issues to do with national teams. We are happy that the government has assured us that it will support us,” Haiya said.
Fam only got K450 million for national football teams from the government despite requesting about K4 billion a year.
The situation forced Fam to incur debts in the course of fulfilling some national team engagements.
But the ministry has also promised Fam that it would find means to settle the debts.
Among other things, the meeting was to discuss matters related to the two association’s budgets and policies.
Mwale said Fam presented a full picture of its funding and sources.
“The government acknowledged its obligation that includes funding the senior national teams and help to ring-fence funds that go towards football.
“The government advised Fam to engage other partners to come on board to support football development,” Mwale said.
Meanwhile, Nam General Secretary Yamikani Khungwa-Kauma also described the meeting as fruitful.
“We presented our case on the need to have the Griffin Saenda Complex completed for us as Nam to be able to host not just the Africa Netball Cup Competition but other high ranking world netball teams. The ministry is working tirelessly on the completion of the project and we are hopeful it will be completed in time for the Africa Netball Cup Competition,” Kauma said.
The meeting was arranged after many sports associations including Fam and Nam complained of dwindled funding towards sports in general.
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