No contracts for Flames coaches

Malawi government and FAM have agreed that the appointed interim coaching panel will be paid per game.

The development means the five-member coaching panel headed by Eddingtone Ng’onamo will not be offered contracts as initially requested by the Football Association of Malawi (FAM).

It also means the interim panel will only be in charge of the Flames until June and not September this year as suggested by FAM.

This follows a meeting which government had with FAM at the weekend.

Sports Council executive secretary George Jana could not be reached for comment as he is reported to be out of the country, but Youth and Sports Minister Enoch Chihana confirmed the development on Tuesday.

“The interim coaching panel will be paid for the time that they will be in charge of the team. They cannot be offered short-term contracts because the assumption is that no one would be prepared to risk their jobs to work on short-term basis,” said Chihana.

He also said the plan is to engage a full-time coach in the next financial year.

“Government operates on a budget and there is no way we can offer either short or indeed long-term contracts now.

“So, the arrangement is that they will be engaged as caretaker coaches and the terms will be communicated to them in due course and it will be up to them to agree to the offers or not,” he said.

FAM president Walter Nyamilandu confirmed the twist of events.

“We indeed had a meeting with government and Sports Council on Friday where it was agreed that in the short term, we shall engage a caretaker coaching panel and in the medium term, we are looking at hiring a permanent coach, but that will be after the current fiscal year.

“The development, therefore, means the caretaker coaching panel will be paid allowances per game and they will not be salaried, the reason being that government cannot afford to pay the coaches now. That’s the rationale,” Nyamilandu explained.

He said this means the caretaker coaches will be in charge of only three World Cup qualifiers starting with the one against Namibia next month, then Namibia and Kenya, but they will not be in charge of the last qualifier against Nigeria.

The FAM president said the plan is that after June, FAM will request for the engagement of a permanent coach as an approval would have been sought from government.

“The anticipation is that funding would have been approved and budgeted for. So, we are waiting for the due process to be concluded,” he said.

Nyamilandu also said in the wake of the development, he is hopeful that offers will be made to the caretaker coaching panel, that includes Ernest Mtawali and Patrick Mabedi as assistants, by end of the week.

Ng’onamo and his proposed two deputies refused to comment on the latest development.

“I would rather not comment on that for the time being until I get official communication from the authorities,” said Ng’onamo.