Football Association of Malawi (FAM) says players that have not undergone proper development stages will no longer be eligible for national teams’ selection unless they have exceptional talents.
FAM president Fleetwood Haiya said this on the sidelines of the Malawi Youth Games’ fifth edition finals at Kamuzu Stadium in Blantyre on Monday.
He said Malawi football has been struggling to progress partly due to failure to sustain talents identified in development structures as each year, new national teams are formed with new sets of players without proper transition.
Said Haiya: “We do not want players that have not played at Under-15, Under-17 or
Under-18 levels to get into the Under-20 or the senior national teams unless they have exceptional talent.
“We want to create a pathway for players. In the past, whenever we called Under-17 players, we used to forget that we had Under-15s the previous year. As a result, we came up with new teams every year, thereby crippling our player development system.
“Players have to go through the development stages before they reach the top.”
The FAM boss said the main basis of FAM’s transformation agenda is grassroots football and that is why FAM has made a strategic alliance with the Malawi Schools Sports Association (Massa) to ensure that players are nurtured while they are still young.
He said the association saw it fit to revive schools of excellence in the country’s education divisions to ensure holistic development of talents both in studies and football.
Said Haiya: “This is going to help us to make sure that whenever we have national competitions in the Under-15, Under-17 or Under-20, it mske it easy for us to identify and nurture talents. Today, we have seen players with heights and skills. The only problem we had in the past was continuity.”
On how the player transition drive will be implemented when, sometimes, national teams’ coaches have their own preference of players, he said: “We had already foreseen such situations and that is why we deliberately made sure that, for example, head coach of under-17 national team Enos Chatama is assistant coach in the Under-20 national team.
“The arrangement will follow with the other national teams. This will always ensure that players identified at Under-17 level are well monitored when they transition to Under-20.”
Massa president Blackson Malamula has since hailed FAM’s initiative, saying it will restore order in the way national team players are selected.
Football analyst Charles Nyirenda yesterday said lack of respect for proper player development structures has been the missing link in Malawi football development and FAM’s initiative is timely.
However, he said TNM Super League teams should also support the initiative by not ignoring players from the development stages.
He said: “This initiative should be a culture embraced by everybody. In the Super League, most teams even fail to promote players from their own reserve sides.
“All football stakeholders should make the systems work.”
