FAM owed K33m Afcon pledges 

Football Association of Malawi (FAM) says it is owed about K33 million in unfulfilled pledges for the national football team’s fundraising drive ahead of the recent 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) finals in Cameroon.

The association has since threatened to publish a full list of those who have fulfilled their pledges and those who have not within 21 days.

The Flames Afcon Resource Mobilisation Taskforce chairperson Jabbar Alide, who is also FAM first vice-president, yesterday said their efforts to collect the money from the organisations and individuals have proved futile.

The task force organised Kuipatsa Moto Flames Golf Tournament at the Lilongwe Golf Club, VVIP Dinner at the Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe and the ‘Ipatse Moto Flames and Win’ Initiative to raise K154 million, which was a deficit on the national team’s K525 million Afcon budget.

The interim report signed by Alide and the task force’s finance committee chairperson Vizenge Kumwenda released by FAM states that the association collected K115 million out of the K148 million pledges.

Alide said: “Despite continued reminders and engagement with the concerned parties, the K33 million in pledges has not been honoured. Currently, final reminders are being made to collect the pledges.”

Most of the unfulfilled pledges were made during the VVIP Dinner totalling K24 million followed by the golf tournament at K9 million.

Out of K86 million net cash, K66 million was remitted to FAM and used to pay allowances for the Flames’ players when they were camping in Saudi Arabia.

The task force has since announced that it will publish names of all organisations and individuals that pledged to support the Flames and those that have fulfiled their promises in 21 days.

Kumwenda, who is Nico Holdings plc chief executive officer, said: “On unfulfilled pledges, we will publish the names that will not honour their pledges so that everyone knows who they are. It will end there as we cannot force them to donate.”

At the Afcon finals, the Flames reached the round of 16 for the first time wher ethey were knocked out by Morocco following a 2-1 loss.

For reaching the round of 16 FAM pocketed $250 000 (about K204 million) with the players sharing 50 percent.