Awards selection process raises questions

Super League of Malawi (Sulom) has maintained the old system of selecting outstanding players for annual awards despite promising to restructure the process at the beginning of the 2015 season.

In 2014, Sulom came under heavy criticism for using a panel comprising its executive committee members to conduct the selection and the organisation pledged to use a more clearly defined system in 2015.

Sulom general secretary Williams Banda during the week said they had failed to implement the reforms that included involving the Polytechnic’s Department of Journalism and members of the Judiciary.

“Yes, a request was submitted and a new criterion was suggested,” he said. “But we failed to implement it due to circumstances beyond our control.”

The organisation will go by the old system which has a committee headed by Sulom president Bottoman having the final say on who should be awarded.

“We have tried our best to improve the awards. I know it’s a contentious issue but we can’t please everyone.

“This year, although we have not fully embraced the reforms, we have tried to take into consideration some of the recommendations,” he said.

This year, the media proposing the names of player of the season, best goalkeeper, best defender, best midfielder and most improved player.

“The committee will then have an input before coming up with the winners in various categories,” Banda said.

Football analyst Enos Chatama favoured the use of the media and football pundits to nominate players.

“That would be a free and fair process,” Chatama said.

Another analyst Charles Nyirenda was of the view that Malawi should have different categories.

“They could come up with different awards like players’ choice, media choice and coaches’ choice. That way, it will be easy to make distinctions on the basis under which the awardees were picked.

“The BBC Africa Footballer of the year Award involves the public. The English League has players’ choice awards. CAF use technocrats to select the outstanding players while Fifa uses national coaches to vote for the Ballon d’Or.

“Once things are that clearly stated and the process is verifiable, there is no room from controversy. But mixing them up by not being clear as whose choice we are being made to accept will once again be problematic, I’m afraid,” said Nyirenda.

South Africa-based Jomo Cosmos midfielder Micium Mhone, who was one of the victims of last season’s awards selection system while at Blue Eagles, urged Sulom to avoid a repeat of the scenario.

Mhone scored nine goals in 2014 and was named man of the match in nine matches but he was conspicuously missing on the nominees.

“I cannot forget about what happened. Up to now, I still can’t understand what made Sulom to sideline me,” Mhone said.

“But the good thing is I survived that scare and now I am playing professional football.”