Court cracks whip on FAM
The Industrial Relations Court (IRC) has ordered Football Association of Malawi (FAM) to pay former Flames coach Meck Mwase K50 million by January 30 as part payment of the K440 million compensation for unlawful termination of contract.
IRC chairperson Austin Msowoya on Thursday summoned FAM and Mwase’s lawyers after the association failed to appear before the court on January 16 without justifiable reason despite being served with the notice.

He went on to order FAM to pay K50 million by Monday while FAM lawyer Luciano Mickeus was ordered to personally pay costs to be agreed by parties or to be taxed by the court for refusing to be served notice of the hearing.
On whether the motion of stay execution should be struck off, the court has set January 30 for inter partes motion hearing.
Mwase was accompanied by his lawyer David Kanyenda while counsel Louis Ulaya represented FAM.
The association’s general secretary Alfred Gunda was also present.
On his part, Kanyenda vowed to fight on for his client to get full compensation.
He said: “We shall deploy all our legal resources and talent in order to secure full recovery of the judgement debt on behalf of our client.
“We shall be satisfied when we collect the full judgement debt but the court order is nevertheless a positive development.”
Gunda said Ulaya would comment on behalf of the association.
However, Ulaya was not available for comment by press time.
Last year, the then IRC deputy chairperson Edna Bodole ordered FAM to pay Mwase the compensation.
However, FAM obtained a stay order of stay following an ex-parte application and subsequently filed inter-partes motion for stay consistent with the said ex-parte order.
The court allocated January 16 2025 as the date of the hearing and on January 9, court clerk Dan Kanyatula informed both FAM and Mwase’s lawyers about the date of the hearing.
It has emerged that FAM lawyer Mickeus refused to be served the notices, because the date was not suitable for him.
This prompted the IRC to summon FAM to appear before it in Blantyre to explain why the motion to stay execution of the court’s judgement should not be struck off, according to court documents.
FAM fired Mwase with a year left on his contract in April 2022 at its executive committee meeting in Mangochi where they replaced him with Romanian coach Mario Marinica, who was initially the technical director.
Later, FAM redeployed Mwase as Under-23 national football team coac
h, but the coach turned down the offer and resorted to suing the local football governing body.
Mwase guided the Flames to 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) finals in Cameroon before being ‘demoted’ to an assistant coach.
Expatriate Marinica took charge of the team at the tournament.
At the time of his dismissal in April 2022, Mwase was earning at least K1.7 million (about $1 000) as his monthly salary.
Marinica, on the other hand, was getting $8 500 (about K14.7 million at the current exchange rate).
Another expatriate Ronny Van Geneugden’s pay was at least $7 500 (about K12.9 million).