FAM lobbies for Restriction waiver
Football Association of Malawi (FAM) has lobbied government to waive Covid-19 public gathering restrictions to a maximum of 100 people at football matches.
Following a sharp rise in Covid-19 cases, government last month gazetted new prevention laws which restrict public gatherings to 50 people which led to Super League of Malawi (Sulom) announcing a three-week recess to observe the situation.
As a first step towards its bid, FAM yesterday held a zoom meeting with Malawi National Council of Sports management.
In an interview yesterday, FAM president Walter Nyamilandu defended the move, saying: “It is impossible to organise a match with 50 people and a request has been made to Sports Council to facilitate a meeting with the authorities [Presidential Task Force on Covid-19].
“It will be vital for a waiver to be granted to sports so that it remains active during this period of the pandemic.”
The FAM president said if the status quo remains, they will be compelled to find an alternative venue for the Flames’ 2022 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifier against Uganda’s Cranes scheduled for next month at Kamuzu Stadium in Blantyre.
On the insistence of resuming the matches when the Covid-19 cases are on the upward surge and people continue to die, Nyamilandu said: “The economic livelihood of our players, officials and clubs is at stake and life has to continue while enforcing safety without compromising the other.
“We are going to tighten the health and safety protocols and scale down our human capital to limit the exposure. We believe we can survive just like other industries if we play football behind closed doors.
“The risk of Covid-19 is somewhat being managed during training by the clubs and we don’t see why we should fail to do the same during competitive matches where fans are not involved.”
In an interview, Sports Council acting executive secretary Henry Mereka said during yesterday’s meeting they asked the FAM Covid-19 task force to provide a rationale on how they can resume the game, considering the current situation.
He said: “We have asked them to clearly define on who will be included in the 100 people and that testing should not be an option. Once they do that, we will submit it to the relevant authorities, in this case the Ministry [of Youth and Sports] for their perusal.
“Considering that there are competitive games coming up and players need to be active, it is an issue that needs to be looked into.”
But Minister of Information Gospel Kazako, who is also government spokesperson, yesterday said he would only be in a position to comment after the task force’s meeting later today.
