National Football Coaches Association is failing to access its K25 million subvention from the Football Association of Malawi (FAM) after rejecting to sign a Memorandum of Agreement on the conditions.
The coaches body’s chairperson Aubrey Nankhuni confirmed declining to sign the agreement on the basis that they were not involved in its formulation.
“A party signs an agreement if it is satisfied with its contents, but for us we had reservations on some articles and besides, we felt FAM should have consulted us before coming up with a final draft,” he said.
Nankhuni said their major concern is Article 12 on disputes which states that: “In the event of any dispute between the parties hereto, such dispute shall be resolved through amicable means provided within the FAM statutes and regulations.”
He said: “We proposed some amendments, but they refused, saying the MoU was drafted with guidance from Fifa, which to our knowledge is not true because we know what Fifa rules say in relation to disputes.
“FAM deliberately put the dispute clause to put us in a tight corner after lodging a complaint to Fifa regarding our expulsion as an affiliate.”
“So, their position is that unless we sign the agreement, they cannot give us the subvention because it is one of the conditions they [FAM] set.”
Nankhuni also said as a result of the stand-off, they are failing to hold their annual general meeting as they require K21 million for the event.
Part of the draft agreement prepared by FAM, reads: “FAM has secured funding under the Fifa Forward Development Programme for the purpose of implementing a project for enhancement of football in the National Football Coaches Association and train its members in order to improve professional standards.
“In order to access the funding availed under the project, FAM, through its executive committee, has decided that each beneficiary under the project should enter into an agreement with FAM which will govern the utilisation of the funding.”
The draft agreement also states that in the first of the three-year agreement, the coaches body was expected to get 50 percent (K12.5 million upon FAM’s receipt of the funds from Fifa, 40 percent upon the liquidation report of the first milestone and the remaining 10 percent upon the liquidation report of the second milestone.
But FAM general secretary Abdul Farhan Chiwalo said: “I do not have anything that suggests they declined to sign the agreement.
“MoU is supposed to be an agreed document for both sides and if they are agrieved to the draft MoU, they have the right to set out what need to be considered beyond what I already discussed eith their chairperson [Nankhuni], whom we came to an agreement.”
