Super League of Malawi (Sulom) says it will revive its one-game-per-week drive starting next season after it fell through last season.
The flagship league governing body’s general secretary Williams Banda also said they have already come up with fixtures for the 2025/26 season which will be distributed to the clubs for their perusal during today’s annual general meeting (AGM) in Lilongwe.
The domestic elite league is scheduled to kick off on April 5.
marred by fixture congestion.|
Nation
Banda was further quoted by Zodiak Broadcasting Station yesterday as having said the fixtures will see teams playing eight or seven games home and away in each round to strike a balance.
The planned changes follow fixture scheduling challenges the body faced last season which led to crammed schedules for clubs.
This led to the top-flight league runners failing to implement their ambitious one game per week plan they initiated under the revive, reform and rebrand drive.
Banda attributed the hiccup to unavailability of venues in some cases, citing Civo Stadium in Lilongwe and Mzuzu Stadium.
Creck Sporting Club board chairperson Muhammad Selemani said they welcome the news to have the fixtures a month before the season’s kickoff.
“This will allow teams to plan properly ahead of the next season,” he said.
“However, it is the same old story that we will have a crammed fixture. This is because we are not aligned to the International Calendar and we are forced to do our things differently from the rest. The presence of national cups in this segregated league will not bring any change in the administration of the game.”
Silver Strikers chief executive officer Patrick Chimimba and his FCB Nyasa bullets counterpart Albert Chigoga said they will only comment after seeing the fixtures.
On his part, football analyst Charles Nyirenda said if Sulom is serious and determined, the plan is workable.
He said: “This is so because the recent announcement by FAM [Football Association of Malawi] that from this coming season attempts to harmonise our league calendar with that of Europe and South Africa, for instance, the 2025 season will spill over into February 2026 or thereabouts.
“What it means is that the league will run for 11 months allowing for a longer time in which to accommodate the one-match-per-week schedule for the Super League the forthcoming season.”
In January this year, Sulom president Colonel Gilbert Mittawa took it on the chin, admitting that fixture scheduling was one of the challenges they faced last season.
He said going forward, they were planning to introduce software atomised fixtures.
“It was a competitive season which lived up to expectations. It was very competitive, but our main challenge was manual fixture scheduling,” said the Sulom boss.
Meanwhile, today’s AGM will also usher in acting vice-president Ronald Chiwaula as vice-president after being nominated by all the 16 teams.
The former Civil Service United general secretary, who was elected into the FAM executive committee in February 2023 as an executive member, will replace Mittawa, who was elected president in March last year.
He replaced Fleetwood Haiya, who was elected FAM president in December 2023.
