Clubs snub registration with players’ body
The TNM Super League kicked off last weekend without football players being covered against risks under the Football Players Association (FPA) after 15 of the 16 top-flight league clubs failed to submit their player registration forms to the body.
The FPA urged all Super League teams to make the submissions by last Friday but the body’s general secretary (GS) Ernest Mangani yesterday said only Dwangwa United complied.
“Things are not working out as expected; when we spoke to the clubs they said they were yet to have risks yet they have already started playing Super League matches,” he said.
“We know the issue is to do with how the FPA is to be funded. The clubs are hesitant because the arrangement is that the body will be financed through an eight percent cut from gate revenue gross at their matches. In fact, they say they are not ready to part ways with their already ‘depleted’ share.”
Mangani has since sought the intervention of Football Association of Malawi (FAM) to help all the stakeholders to understand the benefits of the initiative to players.
“The clubs believe FAM, Super League of Malawi [Sulom] and Malawi National Council of Sports [MNCS] should find another way of funding the scheme. As FPA, we are just on the receiving end. There is nothing much we can do to lobby for the funding. We can only justify the benefits to the players, but we cannot dictate our funding to come from the gate collections.
“There has also been a delay in engaging the stadium owners as they need to first get a greenlight from their authorities. We engaged FAM to write all the ground owners and clubs. We are ready to cover the players but we will have to wait for funding,” he said.
FAM GS Alfred Gunda yesterday said their main objective was on the establishment of the players’ body which needs to deal with the clubs independently.
“The issue of engaging the clubs and the players still remains with the FPA and its directors. As FAM we set the tone by forming this body. We committed to supporting its establishment and the issue of membership needs to be brokered within the FPA. Mind you, where these things exist, FAM’s involvement would derail the aspect of the players’ association independence,” he said.
FPA board of directors, which includes FAM president Walter Nyamilandu, Sulom president Innocent Bottomani and MNCS executive secretary George Jana, agreed to set aside eight percent from gate revenue for the welfare of players in the 2018 season.
However, some clubs such as Nyasa Big Bullets and Be Forward Wanderers described the arrangement of surrendering a cut to the FPA as a nonstarter.
Wanderers GS Mike Butao said they expected the FPA to go back to the clubs after their first briefing, but that did not happen.
Bullets chief executive officer Fleetwood Haiya said while the initiative is beneficial to the welfare of local football players, it would not be of their interest to join FPA as the outfit already has a similar scheme in place.
