2017 Afcon qualifiers catch FAM off guard
FAM has been caught off guard by CAF’s decision to set dates for the opening matches of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations’ qualifiers in the current financial year.
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) announced last week that the opening qualifiers of the 31st edition of the tournament will be held on June 8 and 16, but the Football Association of Malawi (FAM) only has an assured funding of K50 million against an estimated budget of over K200 million to meet costs of fulfilling Afcon and Chan [Championship of African Nations] as well as the Cosafa tournament.
FAM exhausted its K70 million allocation for the current fiscal year in July last year and is relying on the K50 million sponsorship remainder from Flames’ official sponsors Carlsberg Malawi for this year.
FAM president Walter Nyamilandu said on Wednesday they did not expect CAF to arrange qualifiers for two tournaments within the first-half of the year.
He said FAM executive committee will determine the way foward at a meeting slated for today.
“I would have expected CAF to be considerate with financial pressures that member associations are facing because it will be difficult and unfair to schedule Chan and Afcon qualifiers within a short period,” he said.
However, Nyamilandu said there is very little FAM can do about the situation because the only platform they can raise such concerns is at the CAF general assembly, which will only be held towards the end of the year.
The FAM president said reviving a fund-raising campaign and re-engaging government for assistance are other options of raising the required money.
“A determination will be made at Saturday’s [today’s] exco meeting, but it is obvious that we’ll have to enter into competitions based on money that is available,” he said.
Sports Council executive secretary George Jana said it is difficult at this point to say much because he was hearing about the Afcon fixtures from Weekend Nation. He said the only programmes that FAM raised with council were Chan and Cosafa.
“Even for Chan, we would also want to assume that they had a kind of an idea on where they would get the money when they confirmed participation knowing that they exhausted their allocation,” said Jana.
A football commentator and former FAM chief executive officer Charles Nyirenda said it would help if FAM and government start planning together now.
Last October, FAM found itself in a tight spot and nearly cancelled Flames’ trip to Algeria at the eleventh our after government said it could not provide funding for the 2015 Afcon qualifying.
Carlsberg came to FAM’s rescue when it released half of the sponsorship allocation [K50 million] meant for this year.
FAM then embarked on a desperate fund-raising drive to raise funds for the fixtures against Mali and Ethiopia.
