FAM president Nyamilandu fulfills ‘Raise The Bar’ manifesto

 

By Duncan Mlanjira

In his re-election campaign manifesto for the Football Association of Malawi (FAM) presidency, dubbed ‘Raising the Bar’, Walter Nyamilandu pledged to fulfill 15 key strategic promises and as soon as he was elected December 14, 2019, he went down to business.

Within three months Nyamilandu has managed to roll out a number of programmes he promised that included sponsoring Districts Football Leagues, which has been unveiled on Thursday at the Mpira Village on an investment of K60 million.

This is FAM’s shifts in its football growth agenda to masses in the rural areas and the sponsorship will reach out to all the 28 districts across the country.

Other pledges he has already indicated include renovating the Luwinga Technical Centre in Mzuzu into a School of Excellence; hosted and lined up several courses including the highly demanded CAF B coaching course and national teams entering international competitions at all levels with the creation of Under-20 and Under-17 Women’s teams.

He has also improved the association’s media relations by launching a monthly newsletter; has employed FAM Regional Coordinators/Coaches and set the commercialisation agenda by engaging stakeholders on e-ticketing, sponsorship and broadcasting rights.

He has also initiated the process to improve Flames players welfare by reviewing upwards theirs financial incentives.

At the unveiling ceremony of the K60 million sponsorship, Nyamilandu said the Leagues will help FAM put in place systematic football development structures to enable unearthing of talent from the rural areas.

The sponsorship money will come from FAM’s gate takings revenue and districts will get a package of between K1 million to K2 million, depending on the demographics and size of their leagues.

“This is the investment we are making by ploughing back to resource towards football development,” Nyamilandu said at the launch.

“We are putting in motion our intention to shift the country’s football growth agenda to the rural areas where the masses are based because our football has struggled to reach its full potential in the past as we spent more time and energy on the elite football and ignored the lower end.”

He added that there have been no reliable competitions in the rural areas and there have been gaps between the elite level and districts levels in terms of systematic structures.

“There was also no professional refereeing, coaching and administration at the lower level “but that changes now as we now put in place a cross-cutting agenda of ‘Bottom Up’ in order to unearth raw talent.

“Through the leagues, we aim to achieve the development of strong football clubs to be able to challenge regional and Super League teams; garner local community support that will fuel growth of local football teams and in the process pioneer structured and systematic development of the games.”

He also said this will create localized competition through reasonable and considerable monetary reward and a platform for playing more games to the teams and game time to the players.

It will also build capacity for local administrators and officials by giving them an opportunity to get involved in the organization and administration of the game.

FAM pledges to train districts administrators, coaches and referees to ensure that the League and participating teams are professionally managed.

“Let me request the Regional and Districts Football Associations to ensure the league are professionally managed so that we achieve our objectives,” he said.

In his remarks, newly-appointed High Court Judge, Justice Jabber Alide — who is FAM’ vice-president and chairperson for the Competitions and Marketing Committee — said the leagues will be run by district associations under the supervision of the three regional associations.

“The Leagues will be played on a two-legged round robin format and shall run alongside the country’s main football calendar. Each league will have a maximum number of 16 teams and minimum of 8 teams.

“The Regional Associations will liaise with each District Association on the mode of identifying the 16 teams to play in the particular district. 

“As Competitions Committee, we will work hand in hand with the regionals and districts to ensure the leagues are a success,” Alide said.