NAM has said it has identified the coach for the Malawi Queens, but kept a tight lid on the identity until the process is finalised later this week.
However, according to The Nation findings, after a heated Netball Association of Malawi (NAM) executive committee meeting on who should be in charge between Peace Chawinga-Kalua and Mary Waya, NAM settled for the former while the latter will be entrusted with the Under-21 side.
NAM president Rosy Chinunda yesterday confirmed the appointments, saying they will be engaged on part-time until the budget for next fiscal year is approved by government.
“But the successful candidates will still be offered contracts.
“We are in the process of sending offer letters to the successful candidates out of six coaches we had short-listed. If they accept the offers, then the next step will be to offer them contracts and that will be done within the week. We cannot disclose their identities until they accept the offers,” said Chinunda.
She admitted that the process has delayed.
“We are aware that we do not have much time as the [senior] team has to go into camp in preparation for the trip to Dubai and then the Commonwealth Games,” she said.
Apart from Chawinga-Kalua and Waya, the other short-listed candidates were Connis Mhone, Judith Chalusa, Charles Mhango and Samuel Kanyenda.
A well-placed source said the initial arrangement was to have either Chawinga-Kalua or Waya as head coach and the other as deputy.
“But the executive committee resolved to separate the two with Chawinga-Kalua taking charge of the senior team while Waya will be the coach for the Under-21 team.
“Apparently, the decision did not go down well with Sports Council who queried why NAM decided to separate the two instead of having one of them as head coach and the other as deputy. The council advised that it was wrong for NAM to assume that the two could not work together when they coached the senior team together recently without any problems,” said the source.
Chawinga-Kalua expressed ignorance of the issue yesterday.
“I have not been informed anything pertaining to that, maybe at a later stage,” she said.
Sports Council executive secretary George Jana said while he was aware of the deadlock within NAM on who should take charge of the team, he is yet to get official communication on the way forward.
“I remember at a certain point we did advise them that the best thing was to advertise the job as that would have been the only way to identify a suitable candidate for the task. The issue of Peace and Mary was also raised at some point and we wondered why there was an assumption that the two could not work together when they have done that before and there was no indication of a rift,” said Jana.
