FAM’s dream to make the Super League professional hits snag
There was an initiative, soon after the first round, to review resolutions made at the start of the season, but this has not been achieved because efforts by FAM to hold a meeting for that purpose is failing to take place. The association claims that it is courting its affiliate Super League of Malawi (Sulom) and the clubs to find out why almost all the resolutions could not be implemented.
Football Association of Malawi (FAM) wants to seek the intervention of its executive committee.
The resolutions included players having contracts with their clubs, putting the league on hold when the Flames have engagements, teams not getting their shares from gate collections immediately after the match and making compulsory outsourcing of the gate management system.
The ongoing Tony Chitsulo transfer wrangle is one example of incidents a professional league would avoid. Most civilian clubs are often taken to task by their players over welfare issues and such cases are never followed to their logical conclusions because of lack of contracts.
Meanwhile, clubs continue to struggle financially due to inadequate funding while a syndicate of stakeholders, notably fans, continue to plunder revenue from the gates at the expense of the players’ welfare, to say the least of confusion in the handling of fixtures.
The net effect is that Malawi football lags behind while flagship leagues in neighbouring countries are progressing as evidenced by numbers of Malawians seeking greener pasture there.
FAM chief executive officer Suzgo Nyirenda admitted on Tuesday that all short-term resolutions faced challenges, which has forced FAM to go back to the drawing board at a FAM executive board meeting later this month.
“We want to seek guidance as there are some challenges that need to be looked into,” said Nyirenda.
He, however, conceded that not all parties are resisting change.
“There are others who are willing to embrace change for the good of the game, but there have been obstacles along the way,” he said.
Football commentator Charles Nyirenda said the challenge is on implementing good ideas that people come up with.
“The critical issue is that if things are not done professionally, you are bound to suffer from roundabout syndrome as is the case with our football, whereby you appear to be doing something when nothing is happening,” said Nyirenda, a former FAM CEO.
Silver chairperson McDonald Mafuta-Mwale blamed Sulom and FAM for failing to enforce the resolutions.
Said Mafuta-Mwale: “A good example was the stakeholders meeting that was initiated by FAM president [Walter Nyamilandu] a couple of years back. What happened to the resolutions that were made?”
He advised football administrators to admit that some, among them, are not committed to developing the game.
“Imagine, if we had started implementing the 2009 Fifa initiated Lilongwe Declaration, we could have made huge strides by now towards commercialising our league ,” he said.
On his part, Sulom general secretary Williams Banda blamed the clubs for the hitch, claiming they are being selective on which resolutions to implement. He said it is FAM that is better-placed to act on the issue because it is the one convening the meeting.
“Teams are not committed to the cause. For instance, we tried to enforce that all clubs should submit contracts before the start of the [current] season, but there are clubs such as Big Bullets, Mighty Wanderers and Silver Strikers which did not comply. We even gave them a grace period, but nothing materialised,” said Banda.
He also cited the example of outsourcing of gate-management, which again, he said faced resistance from the so-called big teams.
Mid to long-term plans include setting up secretariats, presentation of audited accounts every season, employing full-time administration heads, marketing managers and accountants.
However, some clubs that did not meet the player contract requirement justified the move saying issues of contracts are very sensitive and need time.
Mafuta-Mwale and Bullets general secretary Higger Mkandawire said they could not force players to sign contracts because it is a process that needs wide consultation.
Said Mkandawire: “As a club we also needed to seek legal advice on how to proceed. So, it was not a straight-forward issue as it was portrayed.”
On the issue of outsourcing gate-management, Wanderers general secretary David Kanyenda argued that government needed to open up and allow clubs to use their own cashiers.
A professional league is a far fetched dream at the moment because of the following reasons:1-Whatever happens with a country economically affects other areas or sectors,meaning to say a country that is enjoying significant economic growth attracts more and more big investments such that corporations reach a point of competing against each other and resort to advertisement as a means to challenge competitors’ products’ hence they engage clubs or sports teams to do that promotional exercise which translates into a lot of revenue for clubs.The other advantage connected to this is that individual entrepreneurs who are interested in investing in respective clubs will have the ease to do so because there are no uncertainties in their business operations since a healthy country’s economy means profits for entrepreneurs as they are the backbone of any country’s economic growth.When one invests in a club he expects positive rewards,and in this case when a country gets richer there’re fewer risks in doing business
than when a country is in a present state of economy Malawi is in at the moment.
2-Malawian clubs have failed to show initiative to be partners with corporations.Firstly,corporations look into the already existing structures of clubs such as stadium facilities,youth academies,franchise existence,and relationship with clubs abroad.This is a major problem because no major corporation would be interested in injecting money into a non-existent franchise.Malawian clubs like to have handouts from companies in the name of sponsorship and yet they have no maturity as existing entities that can survive without any outside help. Asante Kotoko of Ghana has already existing structures as a professional entity such that companies compete for it to be partners in business-they inject a lot of money into the club.The other thing is this Ghanaian team has sister links with Sunderland of England and the English club injects money into Kotoko to develop it .Four young Kotoko players have recently gone to Sunderland for further development as a result of such partnership.You don’t see this in Malawian clubs. By now at least Bullets and Wanderers would have had a strong base with existing structures and strong links abroad.European clubs can be very good partners if they see the establishment in African clubs.The problem with Malawian clubs is that when companies sponsor them they think the same companies have to own them,that’s wrong.Companies ought to be business partners and fans and officials are the owners of clubs.Generally,a club should already have a strong financial base emanating from fans’ subscriptions,commercial businesses,and sales of replica jerseys before companies come in to support them.
3-Administration of clubs in Malawi is far from convincing.There is not a healthy relationship between officials and fans,players and fans,and officials and players.This scares sponsors and potential investors.However,this is a result of lack of established structures because all these parties would act professionally in an organized setup.
Having said all this above,I think Malawian clubs need to put their houses in order before FAM even thinks of introducing a professional league.There is need for stadiums by clubs,but cities and towns can also help by building municipal stadiums to be used by clubs.Clubs need to establish partnerships with overseas clubs in order to boost revenue before companies in Malawi come in as partners,and clubs have to establish youth academies and also forge links with kit sponsors in order to have revenue from replica sales.Also clubs have to start to be serious to establish businesses of any kind with strict accountability in them.One can not talk about contracts for players and yet there is no real establishment by clubs financially.The little annual handouts from companies aren’t enough to sustain players’ contracts.