Football Association of Malawi (FAM) and Super League of Malawi (Sulom) will revise rules and regulations to introduce tougher punishments for juju belief cases. FAM general secretary Suzgo Nyirenda told Nation on Sunday on
Thursday that his office has overwhelming reports of teams refusing to use dressing rooms assigned to them for fear of juju. “Not only that, but we also have reports of players jumping perimeter fence for fear
of juju. At this age it is strange practice and detrimental to football. It’s so shocking and we will not condone this behaviour. While in other countries clubs invest in youth programmes and tactical depth, we are still of the opinion that we can progress through juju,” said Nyirenda.
He said the most unfortunate thing from the information they have gathered is that most club administrators are so entrenched in the juju culture and encourage the malpractice. “We have heard of incidents where some supporters and
administrators sleep at match venues prior to a match-day just to ensure the opponents do not apply juju. If club
administrators were serious about rooting out the practice, soccer standards could have
improved greatly.
There is no evidence that juju has helped develop football in Africa. No African country has ever won the World Cup. That is evidence enough that juju does not work. As FAM, we will not rest until this belief is dealt with once and for all,” he said. FAM has since urged club owners in the country to embrace club licensing and develop to invest in youth development programmes so as to nurture talent in order to have continuity of success.
Sulom general secretary Williams Banda also expressed concern about juju dependency culture.
“Clubs risk fines and opt to jump fence or refuse to use the dressing room because of juju belief. We have seen visiting home teams barring visiting teams from training at the match at the venue because of juju fears. We are planning to review
rules and regulation to come up with tough punishments.
Clubs need to invest in the technical panel if they want success and not juju. It does not work.” Silver Strikers and
Be Forward Wanderers have both admitted that football has been dented by juju culture belief. “There is also need for FAM to embark on civic education exercise on futility of juju,” said Silver general secretary Thabo Chakaka-Nyirenda. Wanderers general secretary Mike Butao blamed supporters on the belief in juju. “Most of the players are young and unlike the old generation, they are not into juju. I have seen players singing hymns coming to training with their Bibles. But I think the influence is coming from supporters, the technical people and some administrators. It is unfortunate though. I have hope that with the coming of new crop of technical panel and administrators, the juju culture will
