Seed miss 2013 Massa talent identification programme

About twenty five athletes from the South East Education Division (Seed) have missed an opportunity to participate in this year’s Malawi Schools Sports Association (Massa) Presidential Initiative on Sports (PIS) talent identification programme.

The 10-day programme held in Lilongwe ended on Friday . The development comes in the wake of a letter written by Seed withdrawing from all Massa activities citing suspension of its chairperson James Sawerengera.

Sawerengera was suspended by Massa disciplinary committee last year for alleged misconduct as Seed chairperson.

This meant that the division’s schools such as Balaka, Zomba, Mangochi and Machinga could not send athletes to Lilongwe for the talent identification programme.

In an interview on Friday, Massa general secretary Blackson Malamula argued that the situation has not benefited the athletes.

“When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. The young athletes have been deprived of their rights to participate in various sports disciplines with their friends from other education divisions.

“This is not healthy because all work but no play makes Jack a dull boy. It seems the Seed administration has put first their personal interests in disregard of our future athletes,” lamented Malamula.

However, Malamula described this year’s event as successful and having achieved the intended purpose. There were about 130 athletes from five education divisions, namely North, South West, Shire Highlands, Central East and Central West.

They were drilled in football, netball, lawn tennis, chess, athletics,basketball and handball, among others.