There was drama at Crossroads Hotel in Blantyre yesterday when Football Association of Malawi (FAM) was forced to cancel the launch of football pay TV after a ‘no show’ from its partner Malawi Digital Broadcasting Network Limited (MDBNL).
The launch, which was supposed to be preceded by the deal signing, was supposed to start at 10am. Other invited guests such as representatives of TNM Super League clubs, Super League of Malawi officials and Ministry of Youth and Sports director Jameson Ndalama turned up. But there was no sign of MDNBL officials.
After waiting for over an hour, FAM general secretary Alfred Gunda broke the news on MDNBL’s failure to turn up for the event.
He said: “Basically, we as Football Association of Malawi were ready to proceed with the function to sign an MoU with Malawi Digital Broadcast ingNetwork Limited.
“But we have just received information that our colleagues and partners in this process MDBNL, have some technical and logistical challenges to sort out. So, they won’t join us for this particular event. Because of that, this event is postponed until further notice. You will be advised accordingly when it will be rescheduled.”
MDBNL chief executive officer Dennis Chirwa, who was supposed to sign on behalf of MDNBL, was not available for comment after several calls went unanswered.
Our sources say the Ministry of Information stopped the deal at the eleventh hour.
However, Minister of Information Gospel Kazako was also not available for comment.
MDBNL is a public entity mandated to provide signal distribution services to all licensed content providers and broadcasters.
Registered under Companies Act on 20th February, 2014 but officially started its operations on 1st July, 2015, MDBNL has Kiliyekiliye platform which FAM wants to use as a dedicated football channel.
FAM and Ministry of Sports came up with the football dedicated channel idea following a high demand for local football on television due to the Covid-19 social distancing guidelines which led to the cutting of capacity at match venues to half.
According to FAM marketing director Limbani Matola, FAM has engaged MDBNL as a host broadcaster, who will carry the signal and broadcast it through an encrypted channel on Kiliyekiliye.
FAM has also engaged MBC and Mibawa Television, who were successful bidders, as content producers to be involved in production of matches and thereafter they will share that with MDBNL .
