National Sports

Confusion on Flames camp

Malawi national football team (the Flames) failed to start training on Monday as scheduled after Sports Council advised FAM against going ahead with the camp for the Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Ghana.

Sports Council executive secretary George Jana confirmed stopping the Flames from proceeding with the camp for the return decisive qualifying match pencilled for Civo Stadium on October 13 2012.

“The money they [FAM] were allocated was less than what they budgeted and we felt they needed to scale down on some of their programmes. We wanted to see if we could go to government and ask for additional funding [for the training],” said Jana when asked if the training was not on FAM’s calendar of events for the financial year.

But later on FAM successfully sought the intervention of the Ministry of Youth and Sports to proceed with the camp, the association’s president Walter Nyamilandu confirmed.

“There were conflicting instructions as Sports Council told us on Sunday not to proceed with the camp, saying there is no money. We sought government intervention and they gave us the go ahead,” said Nyamilandu.

The Nation sought FAM’s explanation after establishing that some of the national team’s coaching panel members such as Young Chimodzi were still at their respective bases.

“We are just waiting for instructions on the camp; otherwise, we were told to wait, that is why I am still in Lilongwe,” Chimodzi said Monday morning.

Principal Secretary II in the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Justin Saidi, could not be reached on Monday. The Flames are expected to resume training Tuesday.

Earlier, Flames coach Kinnah Phiri told Weekend Nation that the coaches would first put pen to paper on their renewed contracts before going into camp.

But Nyamilandu insisted there was no such precondition, saying the coaches were committed to the camp training; hence, their selection of a provisional 34-member squad.

Apart from Kinnah and Chimodzi, FAM technical director and Flames technical adviser Jack Chamangwana is also supposed to sign a new two-year contract.

As of Monday, Chamangwana and Chimodzi said they had no updates on the actual signing of the contracts.

“They gave us the drafts of the contracts for our inputs, which we made and handed over the documents to government. They promised to come back to us and we are waiting,” said Chimodzi.

 

Related Articles

Back to top button