Lack of advanced technologies for performance analysis among local football clubs is blocking Malawi players’ prospects of getting lucrative deals abroad, Weekend Nation has learned.
Observers believe that local clubs boast of vast talent, but their lack of ingenuity to adapt to modern technology such as video analysis and data collection on players remain a stumbling block.
Super League clubs still rely on trials for their players an arrangement long abandoned by foreign clubs as it is costly to fly players and keep them for two weeks for trials.
“Big teams nowadays want video profiles on YouTube, Instatscout or WeScout. The videos have to be of high quality. No longer do teams send out scouts as technology is now in fashion, especially, now that Performance Analysis is what clubs use the most in studying players and their opponents,” said football marketing expert and the country’s only certified intermediary Felix Ngamanya-Sapao.
Silver Strikers general secretary Thabo Chakaka-Nyirenda concedes that this has affected the team’s marketing of its players.
“We believe we have to invest a lot in technology so as to remain relevant in this world of advanced football technologies,” he said.
Be Forward Wanderers general secretary Mike Butao said they are already doing something towards achieving their dream of becoming the most technologically advanced football club in the country.
He said: “We are currently making some progress on this aspect as we have our own official website and Facebook pages www.beforwardwanderers.com and www.facebook.com/beforwardwanderers <http://www.facebook.com/beforwardwanderers>. We do live updates and plans are underway to beam some of our games live on the Facebook page. These games will then be archived on the same page.”
“On our official website, each player has his own page and we intend to start posting highlights of every player on this page as well. We are making continuous improvements as we requested more equipment from our Japanese sponsors. From next season we expect weekly updates of players’ video highlights. We have two media managers, who are doing a great job using state-of-art equipment.”
Nyasa Big Bullets general secretary Albert Chigoga admitted that technological backwardness is choking Malawi football progress.
“There is no need to lag behind. The world has become smaller due to advanced technologies. This is about moving with times and innovations. The innovative technologies will simplify life, help to save money and transfer deals will be done speedily,” he said.
Football Association of Malawi (FAM) matching systems and player transfer manager Casper Jangale said local players’ managers should be proactive in terms of linking up players with prospective clubs or middlemen (intermediaries).
“We seem to be confined to this region-Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland,” he said.
Malawi’s general exportation of players to South African clubs and some European clubs has tremendously stuttered in the last decade.
At one point, Malawi had Esau Kanyenda playing in Russia, Russell Mwafulirwa in Sweden, Clement Kafwafwa in Denmark and Dan Chitsulo in Germany.
