Bullets incur K1bn loss in 3 years
TNM Super League champions Nyasa Big Bullets say they have incurred roughly K1 billion loss in the past three seasons, a development that highlights the unprofitability of local football.
According to the club’s chief administration officer Albert Chigoga, the People’s Team spent K1.2 billion on its operations in that period.
In an interview on Monday, he said the money covered salaries, rentals, accomodation, signing-on fees, among other areas.
In those three years, The Nation has established that Bullets generated around K250 million.
The country’s most successful club raked in K37.5 million in prize money, having won the league in 2018 and 2019 and finishing second in 2017.
It also raised around K150 million in gate revenue from league matches. The club is also believed to have generated around K50 million in merchandise sales, cup games gate revenue, player sales and other avenues.
Chigoga admitted that the huge gap between expenditure and income shows that local football is yet to become a profitable venture.
“From a fair analysis of things, no team in Malawi can claim that football business in this country is profitable. However, we are still hopeful that things will get better,” he said.
Chigoga banked his hopes on the football commercialisation currently being implemented in the country as a positive step towards financial success.
“As a club, we have our strategies and the country as a whole is advocating for football commercialisation which in the long-run will create an enabling environment for sustainability,” he said.
Football analyst George Chiusiwa observed that over-reliance on gate revenue was the key challenge facing football’s economic growth.
He said: “The solution isn’t to depend so much on gate revenue. Let’s diversify revenue collection in our game.
“It’s not worthwhile that elite clubs in this era should only bank on gate revenue when the same can be adversely affected by some external factors. What if FAM, due to coronavirus, decides to resume elite football with teams playing behind closed doors?”
