Peter Banda to join Saudi Arabia camp late on January 3

The Flames during their first training session in Saudi Arabia

By Duncan Mlanjira

Winger Peter Banda will only join the Flames pre-Africa Cup of Nations camp late in Saudi Arabia due to his club’s Confederation of African Football (CAF) commitment.

According to Fam.mw, this follows CAF’s decision to allow footballers heading to next month’s AFCON finals to play for their clubs until January 3.

FAM’s competitions and communications director Gomezgani Zakazaka is quoted by Fam.mw as saying Peter Banda’s club Simba is set to host Azam FC in a Tanzanian Premier League match on Saturday.

“Initially, according to FIFA regulations players must be released for AFCON at least 14 days before the start of the competition and in this case the deadline for all players to be released was Monday, December 27,” Zakazaka is quoted as saying.

“But CAF has agreed to allow players whose clubs have matches between December 27 and January 3 to play them before joining up with their national squads for the finals.

“So, Simba have indicated that they want to keep Banda for their match on New Year’s day. We will try to negotiate for a possibility to have him earlier but as it is he will join late.”

Striker Gabadinho Mhango, who was expected to arrive on Sunday, December 26, failed to fly out of South Africa as his flight was cancelled and the next available flight is on Tuesday afternoon.

Meanwhile, Sudan-based midfielder Gerald Phiri Jnr joined his teammates on Sunday afternoon in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

According to Fam.mw, the Flames had their first training session on Sunday morning at Iitthad training complex.

The 14 players who travelled in the first group participated in the trading session while the other nine, who arrived on Friday, were rested.

In the afternoon the team had a gym session and trained together as a full squad on Monday morning.

While in Saudi Arabia the Flames are expected to play two international friendly matches against Comoros and Mali as well as other training matches with local clubs.

The 2021 AFCON in Cameroun will be held between January 9 and February 6 in which the Flames are group B alongside Guinea, Senegal and fellow Confederation of Southern African Football Association (COSAFA) member, Zimbabwe.

The host country are in Group A alongside Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Cape Verde; Group C has north African giants Morocco alongside Ghana, Comoros and Gabon while the Super Eagles of Nigeria are in Group D with AFCON seven-time champions Egypt alongside Sudan and Guinea-Bissau.

Reigning African champions Algeria are in group E alongside Côte d’Ivoire, Sierra-Leone and Equatorial Guinea in Group E while Tunisia, Mali, Mauritania and Gambia are in Group F.

The hosts, who are five-time tournament champs, will host Burkina Faso in Group A opener in Yaoundé on January 9 while Malawi will open their campaign against Senegal on January 10.

This will be the Flames third AFCON appearance, who first qualified for in 1984 which were held in Côte d’Ivoire and the second in Angola in 2010.

In both finals, the Flames were booted out in the group stages while in 1984, they made a huge impression when the led 2-0 against Nigeria but the game ended 2-2. They lost 0-1 against Ghana and 0-3 against Algeria.

In 2010, they stirred some excitement in their opening game when they beat Tunisia 3-1 but lost the consequent matches — 0-2 against the hosts Angola and 1-3 against Mali.

Having had 3 points, Malawi needed a draw reach the quarter-finals for the first time, but after just three minutes into the game, they were down 0-2.