Flames game rated full friendly
The Flames game against Uganda Under-23 national football team met basic requirements of a full friendly (A grade international match), FAM facility and transfer matching system manager Casper Jangale confirmed on Tuesday.
“We wrote to Fifa applying for a friendly match. As for the match being played for just 80 minutes, it depends on the report that will be submitted, but by 80 minutes the game was already matured for a full game,” said Jangale, speaking in the absence of general secretary SuzgoNyirenda.
Minimum duration for a full friendly is believed to be 75 minutes and a maximum of six substitutions are permitted per match. Classification of the 51st Independence Anniversary Celebrations game at the Kamuzu Stadium in Blantyre game as a full friendly might benefit the Flames when next month’s Fifa ranking table is revised.
Uganda, who lost 1-0 on Monday, are ranked 71 against 95 for the Flames, who then stand to gain by playing superior opposition. Practice and exhibition are other types of matches which are, among others, not specific on number of substitutes.
The Flames, with only three players from the side that lost 2-1 to Zimbabwe in a 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier last month, beat Uganda through recalled striker ChiukepoMsowoya’s bullet header.
Fifa statutes classify A international matches as those when “a match arranged between two members of Fifa and for which both members field their first representative team.”
“If a member allows one of its leagues to choose a team that bears the name of its country, the match shall be considered an international match as described in par. 1 of this article,” reads www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/generic.
