FAM opts for local Flames kit
Football Association of Malawi (FAM) has approved its marketing subcommittee recommendation to develop its own Malawi national football team kit brand.
The development comes after partnerships with international sport wear manufacturers have failed to deliver desired results.
FAM had previously partnered with Adidas and later Puma but the deals collapsed because of poor sales of the Flames replicas.
General secretary Suzgo Nyirenda said the FAM executive committee meeting held on Saturday in Blantyre adopted recommendations to part ways with globally known brands.
The general secretary said the subcommittee on marketing has been tasked to explore how best FAM can introduce its own brand.
“We want to find a manufacturer in China or India who can be producing the kit at a low cost.
“The committee has up to this month to submit its findings. We want to launch our own brand once our deal with Umbro expires next year,” he said.
Some of the Africa national teams that cut ties with the global kit manufacturers are Botswana which dumped Puma and now dons jerseys produced by locally based manufacturer All Kasi.
Zimbabwe also dumped Umbro and signed with little known Spanish based manufacturer Joma.
Sports marketing expert Felix Ngamanya Sapao encouraged FAM to implement its plans saying it is the only way to generate much revenue from the replica sales.
He, however, urged the institution to protect the brand by registering its trademark.
“FAM can manage to be producing its own kit but my fear is that they have to protect the brand from counterfeit. This can only be done by registering its trademark,” said Sapao
