Malawi, Zimbabwe women friendly cancelled

FAM has cancelled an international friendly match between Malawi national women’s team and Zimbabwe’s Mighty Warriors scheduled for Saturday in Malawi’s commercial city, Blantyre, citing financial constraints.

According to Zimbabwe’s leading daily, The Herald, the Mighty Warriors were scheduled to arrive in Malawi on Thursday for the preparatory match which both teams were hoping to use to tune up for the African Women Championships preliminary round which starts on the weekend of January 13-15.

Malawi will face Zambia while Zimbabwe will take on Botswana in the preliminaries of the continental showpiece.

According to Wednesday’s edition of The Herald, FAM general secretary, Suzgo Nyirenda, wrote to Zifa on Tuesday informing them of the cancellation of the friendly.

“We had sent a budget to the government regarding the friendly match but, honestly speaking, it will be impossible to have this friendly match played here as we have not got the feedback on the budget since all the civil servants [working in government] are on holiday up to January 9.

“However, we will communicate to you in due course once we have received funding so that this friendly match can take place. We apologise for any inconvenience this might cause, but be assured that we will invite your team in due course,” Nyirenda said in his letter to Zifa.

Nyirenda confirmed the cancellation of the game saying apart from financial constraints, the National Women Football Committee (NWFC) submitted its proposal for the match late.

“They [Zimbabwe] had been talking to the chairperson of NWFC [Suzgo Ngwira]. Unfortunately, the proposal was sent after the [FAM] AGM and it was difficult to plan,” Nyirenda said.

Ngwira refused to comment on the matter.

However, Nyirenda assured that the friendly match will still be played should Malawi qualify for the next round, but he refused to comment on the issue and referred The Nation back to FAM.

Zimbabwe coach Rosemary Mugadza said the cancellation of the Blantyre match will not affect their preparations for this tie.

“We are going ahead with our preparations and this will not really affect us, but it will give us more time to prepare for the qualifier against Botswana,” Mugadza said.