Fam spoils sulom with K100m grant

Football Association of Malawi (FAM) has announced that it has introduced a K100 million annual grant for the Super League of Malawi (Sulom).

FAM president Walter Nyamilandu yesterday said the funding, which will be a standing grant, is part of the association’s strategic plan to empower Sulom to professionalise the top-flight TNM Super League.

He said: “This is one way of fulfilling our strategic intentions of making our elite league attractive which includes empowering Sulom to accelerate professionalising of Malawi football and the elite league.”

The association will also introduce an annual K75 million subvention to be equally shared by Northern Region, Southern Region and Central Region football associations.

FAM will use funding from the recently announced K3 billion annual Fifa Forward Funding for the Sulom grant, according to Nyamilandu.

FAM has since set up a special task force headed by its first vice-president Jabbar Alide with Chimango Munthali, Sulom president Tiya Somba Banda as executive committee members and the three regional associations’ chairpersons as members to come up with guidelines on how the funds should be accessed.

Somba Banda in an interview applauded FAM for the funding, saying it will go a long way in building the capacity of the league.

He said: “It’s something we presented to FAM executive and deliberated upon and we are grateful that the FA saw merit in our case.

“The package will cement our drive to professionalise the league and our key strategic areas of focus will be employing a full-time secretariat led by a chief operating officer, a professional accountant and marketing officer to improve public relations and digital and social media footprint of the league.

“We will also provide grants to the teams to increase from the current K1 million from the sponsorship, support the champions in CAF participation as it is done in other countries.”

But Dedza Dynamos Salima Sugar general secretary Mabvuto Mugode said Sulom should distribute part of the funding directly to clubs.

He said: “It’s tough for most of the clubs, especially at the beginning of the season when they have to fulfil many obligations. If Sulom could distribute say, K5 million to each club, it would go a long way in solving their financial problems. The rest of the money can be used to increase the prizes as Sulom wishes.”

Northern Region Football Association chairperson Lameck Khonje said they will use their funding to increase prizes for the league and develop talent from grassroots.

He said: “This is what we wanted all along. This funding will allow us to go to every corner of the region to identify and develop talent.

“We also need to make the league competitive. For a long time people have been complaining that our league is competitive because of the low prizes.

“With this funding, we should be able to push up the prizes as well as introduce new categories in order to make the league competitive.”