Carlsberg bars active players from Six-A-Side League
Carlsberg Malawi Limited has warned that it will pull out sponsorship from the newly launched Six-A-Side Indoor Soccer League at the College of Medicine (CoM) Sports Complex in Blantyre if teams involve players that play active football.
The company’s senior brands manager Twikale Chirwa said this during the launch of the K700 000 competition on Friday.
“We came up with this competition to be a gift to our fans who support the elite teams contesting in the Carlsberg Cup. We realised in our sponsorship package, we were forgetting to honour the 12th player, the fan.
“Most soccer supporters, especially in the corporate world, lack good time and place to practise what they see in competitive tournaments due to work commitments during day time. So, if we see active players slotted into this competition, it will be hard for us to come back next year,” he said.
According to Chirwa, the indoor soccer league is the brainchild of the Carlsberg Malawi group commercial director Allen Mcinnes, who accompanied him at the launch. The games will be played on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5.30pm.
While thanking Carlsberg for the sponsorship, CoM finance and administration manager Chris Chilembwe said they will set up a committee to monitor the teams’ fielding. He said a team found at fault will be disqualified.
So far, 13 corporate teams have joined the league which kicked off on the day of the launch when FMB beat TNM 3-0. Registration is still open.
The competition’s fixtures secretary Rodrick Banda said registered teams have been divided into two groups, which have Nedbank, CDH, Old Mutual, CoM, UGI, MSB and Indebank in Group A, and Carlsberg, Masm, FMB, TNM, Charter Insurance and DHL in Group B.
