No funds for U-20 women’s national finals

The National Women Football Association (NWFA) says it has run out of funds to stage the 2016 Women Fifa/FAM Under 20 national finals which were supposed to take place before this month.

In October, Football Association of Malawi (FAM), with funding from Fifa, pumped in K14 million towards the organisation of the Under-20 Women Football League.

The regional champions were already identified and are just waiting for the association to announce the date for the national finale.

In an interview on Monday, NWFA chairperson Severia Chalira said they have exhausted all the funds for the 2016 season and that the national finals might be played next year.

“It will not be possible to have national finals this year, our coffers are dry. We have rescheduled it to next year, probably by the end of January.

“We normally send our budget to FAM in November or December. Now, we came up with the idea of the league after we had already submitted the budget, but for next year we have included the league in our budget,” she said.

FAM general secretary Alfred Gunda said NWFA is yet to communicate to them on the shift of the national finals to next year.

“We are not aware that they have shifted the national finals to next year. Otherwise, we expect the league to wind up this year,” he said.

Moyale Sisters team manager John Chimwala lamented the decision, saying the majority of their players are students and it will be difficult for them to leave studies for football.

Teams that qualified for the national finals are Zomba City Queens from Zomba, Ntopwa Super Queens from Blantyre, Moyale Sisters from Mzuzu and DD Sunshine from Lilongwe. n