Malawi National Council of Sports (MNSC) says it has not shelved plans of introducing the Under-18 Malawi Games.
Sports Council executive secretary George Jana said the Malawi Games idea is still intact.
“The plan to come up with Malawi Games is still intact and it will roll out at the end of 2016. The estimated total budget will be made public once the formulation process is complete because it is such progression that will determine the number of sporting codes and athletes to be involved,” Jana said.
The aim of the games is to improve local athletes’ performance at international events such as the Zone V1 Games, the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games.
The plans initially surfaced in 2011 before being discarded at the eleventh-hour after some quarters argued it would be a duplication of the existing Presidential Initiative on Sports (PIS).
But the plan was revived in 2013 with Sports Council arguing the competition would be different from the PIS since it would be for Under-18s and involve district teams, not individual teams.
Then, the games’ proposed budget was at K1.9 million.
However, there has been silence on the matter for the past two years until yesterday when Jana told The Nation that the games have not been written off.
Sports Council also plans to introduce Sports Awards to acknowledge outstanding athletes in various disciplines. n
