* The gesture from the President is to express his best wishes to the Flames as they open their COSAFA Cup 2025 title campaign
* Against Lesotho this afternoon from 15h00 to be beamed live on SuperSport channel 227 and streamed live on FIFA+
Maravi Express
President Lazarus Chakwera has accepted the request from Football Association of Malawi (FAM) to be Flames’ and Scorchers’ Patron.
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This was done yesterday during an audience that FAM president, Fleetwood Haiya had with Chakwera where the President donated K50 million towards the Flames’ COSAFA Cup 2025 campaign.
This was a gesture from the President to express his best wishes to the Flames as they open their COSAFA Cup 2025 title campaign against Lesotho this afternoon from 15h00 to be beamed live on SuperSport channel 227 and streamed live on FIFA+.
Chakwera accepted the role of Patron after FAM president Fleetwood Haiya impressed on him that he will lead and rally the nation in rendering moral, monetary and material support for the two national teams.
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After today’s match, the Flames will next meet Namibia on Sunday, June 8 with the final Group B clash against defending champions Angola scheduled for Tuesday, June 10.
Meanwhile, FAM has also garnered support from Japanese Embassy as Haiya’s administration strives to build a strong strategic alliance in the drive to transform Malawi football.
Japan’s Ambassador to Malawi His Excellency Youichi Oya paid a courtesy call at Mpira Village which was a response to FAM’s efforts to court international parteners following meetings with a number of embassies last year.
Fam.mw reports that Haiya applauded Ambassador Oya for the historic visit to Mpira Village which he said demonstrates Japan’s will and commitment to partner FAM in football development.
“It is indeed a good moment for us to host you here,” he is quoted as saying. “Our strategic plan which we launched last year emphasizes on the importance of forming strategic alliances with foreign FA’s through their embassies.
“As one way of achieving that we visited a number of embassies and sold our vision on transforming Malawi football. We are happy that our efforts have started bearing fruits with this visit which will open for more doors for more collaboration with Japanese Football institutions.
“We have discussed a number of areas of collaboration like exchange visits for our technical personnel as well as arranging matches between our different national teams.”
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On his part, Oya, who donated footballs to FAM on behalf of the Japanese FA, is quoted as saying they are excited to build a strategic working relations with Malawi: “There is already a good working relationship between Malawi and Japan on football development. FAM has a volunteer from Japan International Cooperation Agency who is attached to the technical department.
“We have also seen that players from the two countries have been playing in our leagues; our player Nakamura Genki played in Malawi and while Malawi’s Jabulani Linje played in the J-League.
“We can build from that to make great strides for more collaborations from the referees, coaches, national teams and players so that we develop the game of football in Malawi as we have done in Japan,” he said.—Content by Fam.mw; edited by Maravi Express
