Nomads exco, fans in blame game

Be Forward Wanderers main supporters committee says the club’s followers are reluctant to support the Nomads’ fundraising initiatives due to the recent controversy surrounding the TNM plc airtime dealership.

This comes after the club’s chairperson Gift Mkandawire partly blamed the supporters of not supporting the team’s initiatives such as Noma Yathu SMS campaign and the SPA Noma bottled water deal, leading to the club’s struggles to pay players’ signing-on fees.

Among others, Nomads owe their wonderkid Fransisco Madinga K4 million signing-on fee, a development which led to the player boycotting training last week before resuming practices yesterday following discussions with the team’s leadership.

Said Mkandawire: “We have always said that the sponsorship we get from [Japanese second-hand vehicle dealers] Be Forward Limited only caters for wage bill and we source extra funding for other operations such as players’ game bonuses and signing-on fees.

“That is why we introduced the initiatives to supplement the Be Forward support. However, we are not getting much support from our supporters.

“So, I throw it back to the supporters that let’s join hands and support our initiatives.”

However, the Lali Lubani Road outfit’s main supporters committee chairperson Melvin Nkunika defended the supporters’ reluctance, arguing the executive should first put its house in order.

“Tell me, which soccer fan would invest in a system that is rocked with alleged financial mismanagement controversy?

“The executive should learn on how to handle sensitive internal matters and avoid washing dirty linen in public if they are to regain the supporters’ trust,” he said.

An investigation instituted by the club reportedly exposed abuse of funds from the airtime dealership contract in which the Nomads lost K124 million.

Mkandawire was then quoted as having said that the club had stopped payments into the airtime dealership account until the matter is sorted out.