Chaotic calendar affects Malawi netball
Malawi netball follows a cluttered calendar of events which creates chaos in domestic competitions, Nation on Sunday has established.
President of the Netball Association of Malawi (NAM), Rossy Chinunda, verified existence of flaws on their schedule sheet.
She, however, said it would be difficult to improve the 2015 calendar because the “problems are beyond the body’s control”.
It has been noted that some 2014 netball contests have spilled over to 2015 not because the schedules were tight, but ‘haphazard’, as the 2014 calendar did not clearly state dates of certain events.
For example, national finals of the 2014 Presidential Netball Championships concluded yesterday (Saturday) in Mzuzu while the 2014 OG Issa Southern Region Netball League (SRNL) season is yet to be wrapped up.
According to Southern Region Netball League (SRNL) chairperson Khungekile Matiya, the 2014 GOtv Netball Champions League was planned to be played between May and June, but it took place in October, thereby forcing her committee to cancel fixtures of the OG Issa League matches.
She said the assembling of the national team squad on dates that were initially not indicated on the calendar NAM released, made things worse as they cancelled their games to pave the way for the Malawi Queens’ engagements.
Matiya said, had it not been for the ‘haphazard’ calendar, the league could have been concluded in November 2014, before the rainy season.
“Due to the disturbances that emanated from the jumbled calendar of events, we now have loads of games to play before we wind up our fixtures and it would be even tougher to conclude our games due to the rains.
“Most of the national team activities had no dates on the calendar and we had to cancel games because we just learnt at the eleventh hour that the national team had international engagements,” said Matiya.
She also suggested that NAM should be able to accommodate the calendar of events for regional leagues in the national calendar to create sanity in the local netball scene.
While urging NAM to borrow a leaf from the Football Association of Malawi (FAM) on how to develop a good calendar and promptly follow it, Matiya further suggested that NAM should accommodate regional league calendar of events in the national schedule sheet to create sanity on the local netball scene.
Matiya’s Central Region (CRNL) counterpart Fanuel Katengeza pleaded with NAM to solve the situation to finish local competitions on time and allow netballers to rest during off-season breaks.
“At present, the 2014 national finals of the Presidential Championships are happening in January 2015, yet in two months, we have to begin a new netball season. Now, are the players going to have ample time for rest?” he queried.
But Chinunda said it would be a joke to say that they will solve the problem because the problems in the calendar do not emanate from the association, but organisers of international events, who sometimes “confuse us by not providing the exact dates of events.
“Moreover, government funding for our annual activities such as the Presidential Championship is unpredictable and it is difficult to plan our operations.
“It is inevitable to have a clean calendar and everybody just has to get used to it. As one netball family, we just have to understand the situation and move on.”
In 2014, Malawi Netball Queens travelled three times to Europe to participate in international competitions. They went to New Zealand for the Fast5 World Series Championships and England for the Commonwealth Games and Test Matches where they fared poorly in terms of performance as compared to previous years.
