FAM presents K600m budget

Football Association of Malawi (FAM) has pleaded with government to meet its K600 million proposed budget in its entirety.

The budget is for senior and junior national teams’ engagements.

According to Sports Council executive secretary George Jana, the Netball Association of Malawi (NAM) comes second having presented a budget in excess of K100 million for the next financial year, which starts on July 1.

He also said out of over 40 associations, only 10 have submitted their budgets.

And while Jana said it is not possible for government to allocate FAM that much, the association’s chief executive officer Suzgo Nyirenda pleaded with government to meet the  budget in full if they are to fulfill forthcoming engagements, in particular the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations and the 2015 Africa Youth Championship.

This is the highest proposed budget to be submitted by FAM, which in the past two years was allocated K130 million against budgets in excess of K400 million budgets.

Nyirenda justified the K600 million budget, saying it is an assumption of how much the teams will require in the event that the Flames qualify for the group stages of the Nations Cup and the junior side reaches finals of the continental youth showcase to be hosted by Senegal between April and May next year.

“We are pleading with government that this time around, the budget should be met in its entirety; otherwise, we may fail to fulfill some of the fixtures.

“When the budget goes to Parliament, they should look at it with sober minds,” said Nyirenda.

In the event that the Flames qualify for group stages, he said they will be required to travel to Algeria, Mali and Ethiopia besides hosting the home matches.

He added that the budget includes proposed friendly matches on Fifa calendar dates in August and November.

Nyirenda said they will get K100 million from the Flames official sponsors, Carlsberg Malawi Limited, for next year to supplement government funding.

“We are also hoping that by that time, we would have sealed a deal with Umbro on the sale of replica jerseys whose proceeds will also be channelled to the teams,” he said.

But Jana said the process of allocations has not yet been done.

“In any case, it is not possible for them to get that much if history is anything to go by and the K600 million is more than our budget,” said Jana.

He ruled out fears of the delay in budget presentation affecting national team engagements because special arrangements are always made.