APM meets minister on foreign coach

President Peter Mutharika is scheduled to meet Minister of Labour, Youth, Sports and Manpower Development Henry Mussa tomorrow in Lilongwe to discuss Football Association of Malawi (FAM) proposal to hire an expatriate coach.

“I have an appointment with His Excellency on Friday afternoon to discuss the issue of an expatriate coach,” said Mussa in an interview yesterday.

However, the minister could not be drawn to comment on whether the President will come up with his determination after the discussions.

“I wouldn’t want to speculate, all I can say is that I have an audience with H.E on the matter,” he said.

The development comes days after FAM president Walter Nyamilandu announced that the association’s executive committee would meet on Saturday to decide whether to wait for government’s decision on hiring an expatriate as they were facing a race against time ahead of the Championship of African Nations (Chan) preliminary qualifiers against Madagascar in April.

But in an interview yesterday, Nyamilandu said they appreciate the minister’s personal intervention “on this matter of national importance.

“The outcome will determine the way forward when we meet on Saturday and we pray for a favourable outcome of the meeting.

The fact that the minister had escalated the request to the President demonstrated strong political will to support the process of hiring an expatriate.

“We applaud the initiative that he [Mussa] has taken to find a solution,” he said.

FAM recently said should the President turn down the proposal to hire an expatriate from outside Africa, the alternative will be to hire an expatriate from within the continent.

“This could be relatively cheaper. Failing which [then] we will have to settle for a local coach,” said Nyamilandu last week.