2023 FAM National Women’s Championship set for April 22-28

Last year’s champions, Ntopwa FC

* Winners to represent Malawi at the 2024 CAF Women’s Champions League COSAFA qualifier

* The country was represented by Ntopwa FC last year by virtue of being 2022 champions

By Duncan Mlanjira

All is set for the 2023 edition of the FAM National Women’s Championship scheduled to be played for a period of one week between April 22-28, whose champions shall represent Malawi at the 2024 CAF Women’s Champions League COSAFA qualifier.

Last year, the country was represented by Ntopwa FC by virtue of being champions of the 2022 FAM National Women’s Championship after beating Lilongwe-based side Ascent Soccer 5-3 in post-match penalties at the Mpira Stadium.

Organized by National Women’s Football Association, with funding from Football Association of Malawi (FAM), Championship will be participated by 10 teams — comprising three top teams from each of the 2023 FAM Regional Women’s Football Leagues, plus one team which will win the play offs for the three Leagues’ fourth placed teams.

Six teams have seeded to join in the quarterfinals — Ntopwa FC & Nyasa Big Bullets Women (South); MDF Lioness & Ascent Academy (Centre) and Moyale Sisters & MK Academy (North).

The Championship will be played on knockout basis — starting with first play-offs to determined the best fourth-placed team to be conducted before the National Championship’s draw to come up with 10 teams.

The three teams that will take part in the first play-offs are Bvumbwe FC (South), Civil Service Women (Centre) and Ekwendeni Sisters (North) — to be played on Saturday, April 13th at the Mpira Stadium in Blantyre.

The second play-offs will involve the three third-placed teams from the regions and the winner from the first play-off will compete against each other whereby the two winning teams will proceed to the quarter finals.

The three third placed teams that will be joined by playoffs winners for this phase are Mighty Wanderers Queens (South), Silver Strikers Ladies (Centre) and CY Sisters (North).

Two top teams from this stage will then join the seeded in the race for the championship the quarter finals with the four winning teams proceeding to the semifinals, then the final and third place playoffs for the losing semifinalists.

Each team will use players registered with their respective Regional Women’s Football Association for the 2023 season and will use Mpira Connect and their leagues registration cards for identification.

FAM emphasizes that the Mpira Connect Registration is a must and only those actively registered in the Mpira Connect System will be eligible to participate.

FAM further says each of the 10 qualifying teams will receive a subvention of K1 million during the second playoffs and quarterfinals while the four semifinalists will further be boosted with K1 million each.

So the stage is set for the tournament’s champions to earn their place at the 2024 CAF Women’s Champions League COSAFA qualifier where Ntopwa gained rich experience and exposure as they were pitted against the best in the COSAFA region.

They were grouped together with defending champions then, Green Buffaloes of Zambia in COSAFA alongside Botswana’s Double Action Ladies and Lesotho Defence Force.

The other group B had Mamelodi Sundowns (South Africa); Olympic de Moroni (Comoros); Costa do Sol (Mozambique) and Young Buffaloes (eSwatini).

In their opening match, they drew 1-1 with Lesotho Defence Force in which they had led from the 45th minute through Vanessa Chikupira  only to give in with four minutes to full time — having missed a lot of chances including a penalty.

They exited the tournament following their 0-4 loss to Botswana’s Double Action Ladies but the international experience and exposure was taken note of by Ntopwa’s coach, James Sangala attested that there were a number of lessons that were drawn from the championship.

“Our girls are good but are not strong enough like the other teams,” he told Fam.mw after the exit. “As we go back home, we will look at our recruitment plan to have players who are physically strong.

“This is a big stage that needs experienced players and we hope our girls will go back home differently having seen how tough the competition is at international level and obviously, we will come back stronger next time.”

The FAM National Women’s Championship is also a platform to showcase their skills as national team technical personnel will also be scouting out for hidden talents to be nurtured for future international tournaments.

All eyes will be on Ascent Soccer’s Rose Kadzere and Letica Chinyaluma, who have been nominated for the inaugural regional COSAFA Awards in Women’s Promising Player of the Year.

The two were part of the Malawi Scorchers triumphant squad of the COSAFA Women’s Championship 2023, alongside Faith Chinzumu, Maggie Chavula and Ireen Khulamo.

Kadzere and Chinyaluma have been nominated alongside Zambian Esther Banda based on their performances both at national and club level in the year 2023.

Thus Ascent Soccer are preparing for their FAM National Championship campaign, hoping to go one better — having lost on penalties in the final a year ago.