Bingu stadium rebuffs fam

Bingu National Stadium (BNS) has snubbed Football Association of Malawi (FAM) over the hosting of Chifundo Charity Shield that will involve Nyasa Big Bullets and Kamuzu Barracks (KB) in Lilongwe this Saturday.

This follows FAM’s futile attempts to persuade BNS management to forfeit its 25 percent cut from gate revenue as part of their contribution towards the charity cause.
This year’s proceeds will go towards the purchase of physiotherapy equipment for patients at BeitCure International Hospital in Blantyre.

The development has prompted FAM to opt for Civo Stadium, which has agreed to surrender their cut alongside Bullets, KB, FAM and Malawi National Council of Sports (MNCS).
“If people want to fundraise at this [Bingu] stadium, they need to meet our conditions; the facility is exclusive in terms of its operations. It is an entity that requires to generate own income for maintenance and there is no way we can just offer the venue for free to charity events,” said BNS operations manager Eric Ning’ang’a yesterday.

“By the way, who told FAM to organise the charity activity in the first place? Was that not their idea? There is no way we can sympathise with them because despite being a government facility, BNS has costs to meet. For instance, we incur over K3 million to maintain the facility each time it hosts a match.”
Ning’ang’a claimed that it is such tendencies that destroyed the Kamuzu Stadium because instead of making sure the facility generates enough revenue for maintenance some quarters were using it for free in the name of charity.

“Nobody should take advantage of the facility being a government entity to exploit it. We will not allow anybody to encroach into our management system little by little until our operations are crippled,” he said.

FAM commercial director Limbani Matola admitted that they decided to abandon the spacious stadium and opted for Civo Stadium because of the former’s refusal to forfeit their revenue cut.
“It is expensive to host games at the Bingu National Stadium, a development that could defeat our fundraising campaign. The philosophy of the charity shield is for stakeholders to contribute towards the noble cause rather than benefiting from it,” he said.

The Charity Shield promises to attract a large crowd and observers believe the 41 000-capacity BNS could have been a better venue as compared to the 25 000-capacity Civo Stadium in terms of revenue.