Tigresses count on Bingu sponsorship
The future of Bingu Tigresses’ sponsorship has been cleared following a meeting which the team’s management had with their late sponsor president Bingu wa Mutharika’s children.
Tigresses team manager Helen Mpinganjira said on Thursday that they recently had a fruitful meeting with Bingu’s daughters Tapiwa and Duwa, who made a commitment to continue assisting the team financially.
“When our sponsor passed on, we were caught unawares as we did not know how to proceed. We did not know who to approach.
“But after consultations, we thought it wise to give the bereaved family time to mourn the president and just recently we met his daughters who made a commitment to continue assisting us [the team],” said Mpinganjira.
She said Mutharika’s daughters also released funding to meet part of the costs of running the club.
“They were happy that we had maintained the name and they expressed their commitment to continue supporting us,” said Mpinganjira, but she could not be drawn to disclose how much they got.
On the length of the sponsorship commitment, Mpinganjira said: “We agreed to meet them again at a later stage because they said there were some logistics that needed to be worked on.”
Efforts to get comments from Tapiwa and Duwa futile on Thursday as their phones went unanswered.
The late president started supporting the team in 2009 after Admarc withdrew its sponsorship. He was sponsoring the team to the tune of K10 million (about $30 000) per season.
Tigresses are considered one of the best netball outfits on the domestic scene. They are the current holders of the Presidential Netball Cup. They also contribute players such as Sindi Simtowe, Beatrice Mpinganjira, Laureen Ngwira and Ellen Chibokho to the national netball team, the Queens.
