Big clubs struggle with membership

The country’s major football teams Big Bullets, Mighty Wanderers and Silver Strikers appear to be struggling in their quest to enforce their ambitious supporters membership drive.

All the three clubs have attributed the hitches to logistics such as marketing the initiative, mainly incentives that could entice their supporters to register while some supporters said lack of trust in the teams’ leadership is another factor as the fans are not sure that the money would go towards intended purposes.

On the other hand, the fans have also been blamed for not displaying loyalty in supporting the teams’ initiatives, and instead, are bent on making a quick buck at the expense of the clubs.

The three teams embarked on the membership campaign a few years ago in the quest to formalise their fan-base structures and as an income-generating initiative.

Despite claims that they enjoy a huge fan base of over one million each, it has emerged that so far, they have registered not more than 1 000 fans each.

Constitutions of all the three teams stipulate that only paid up members shall be allowed to take part in their annual general meetings.

Wanderers general secretary David Kanyenda admitted that the drive is moving at a slow pace.

“There are people that are interested, but there are logistical challenges because we cannot reach out to all our supporters unless we establish trustworthy contacts through our fund-raising committees at district and regional levels. We also need to spread out in the zones,” said Kanyenda.

Bullets general secretary Higger Mkandawire said, initially, the club came up with three groups—platinum (K5 000), gold (K2 500) and ordinary (K1 000).

“There was huge interest, but the challenge we faced was capacity in that we could not reach out to all our supporters scattered across the country due to lack of resources,” said Mkandawire.

He said they have since changed the approach to the SMS campaign, which he believes will ensure transparency as a special bank account for the exercise will be opened.

“The SMS campaign appears to be on track and we have now hit 16 500 messages. This is a much simpler way because we will have particulars of the person from the message sent,” he said.

But Mkandawire said they have not abandoned the earlier initiative.

During the launch of the SMS drive in May this year, Bullets chairperson Malinda Chinyama said they are targeting to raise K50 million (about $125 000).

Silver also said they could not attract the projected membership due to lack of incentives.

“Previously, the drive was being handled by the main executive committee, but we have now delegated it to a fund-raising subcommittee,” said the team’s general secretary, Mike Tembo.

A Blantyre-based Bullets fan Kelvin Chifunda held both the fans and the club managers responsible for the failure of the initial project.

“They need to put in place proper mechanisms to reach out to the fans,” said Chifunda.