Council orders associations to submit constitutions

Malawi National Council of Sports has written sports associations, demanding submission of their respective constitutions by close of business tomorrow.

Sports Council spokesperson Edgar Ntulumbwa said in an interview yesterday that the move is aimed at checking if the associations have abided by the new guidelines it set last year.

He said: “We gave them [associations] six months to amend their constitutions so that they should be in line with the guidelines that we set and we feel that was enough time.”

The guidelines included a maximum of two terms for executive committee members, having a proper secretariat and minimum qualifications for a president and general secretary.

On what the council will do if some of its affiliates fail to submit their constitutions or if they have not amended their constitutions, Ntulumbwa said: “Then we will take necessary action.”

He could not be drawn to elaborate, saying: “We do not want to believe that they have not done it because the guidelines were introduced to help the associations operate professionally.”

Football Association of Malawi president Walter Nyamilandu and general secretary Alfred Gunda could not be reached for comment yesterday, but Golf Union of Malawi (GUoM) and Netball Association of Malawi (NAM) yesterday said they already submitted their constitutions.

Said GUoM president Gift Gondwe: “We submitted ours and I remember the only thing they advised us to do was to change our logo so that it should have national colours.”

NAM general secretary Isaac Chimwala said: “We did submitted ours way back and I was surprised to get a letter on the same. So, we will resubmit.”