Fam TD in tight spot
Football Association of Malawi (FAM) technical director John Kaputa and Eddington Ng’onamo are on the list of coaches that have passed the CAF A licence coaching course despite being among the course’s instructors.
Ironically, Kaputa, who was the lead instructor of the course conducted in Blantyre last year, has emerged the best on the list of 25 coaches that have passed the test after scoring a total of 394 marks out of 400 while assistant instructor Ng’onamo amassed 302 marks.
Kaputa scored 100 percent in the laws of the game, 99 in oral exams, 98 in football theory and 97 in practical coaching.
The two were also not on the list of participants.
The development has raised eyebrows among soccer analysts, who believe it is unethical for course instructors or facilitators to be participants as well.
However, Kaputa contradicted FAM vice-president James Mwenda on why his name is appearing on the results list Confederation of African Football (CAF) has released.
Kaputa argues CAF might have made ‘a mistake’ by including his name on the list of coaches that took their exams in the country because as a senior instructor, CAF and Fifa assessed him separately during a similar exercise in Cameroon.
“After module one of the course in Malawi, CAF called me to go to Cameroon where I did my practical and presentation. A panel of instructors from Fifa and CAF assessed me alongside 10 other coaches from African countries,” he said.
“CAF has just made a mistake by including my name on the results list. They should have separated my name from the rest.”
He said despite being a CAF instructor, the CAF A licence is important to him because it can be helpful if he is wanted to work as a coach for a club or a national team.
In contrast, Mwenda said CAF honoured Kaputa with the CAF certificate because of his credentials as a senior instructor. Nevertheless, he could not explain why somebody with an honorary licence could be graded and given marks.
“Maybe, he was graded for the honorary certificate. However, it was clarified after the results came out that Kaputa had gone for CAF A course because it was not available previously,” Mwenda said.
Ng’onamo could not be reached yesterday but Kaputa said the former Flames’ coach was assessed for the CAF A licence by another instructor sent by CAF while facilitating the course.
But football analyst George Kaudza Masina argued the whole scenario is not adding up.
“If it was true that this was done on honorary basis, then, why are the sentiments contradicting the facts? What happened here was unethical; imagine a teacher setting up exams and sits for the same test, which he is going to mark himself. Obviously he is going to score the highest as he already has the answers at hand,” Kaudza Masina said.
“This is CAF-gate, which needs to be investigated with some seriousness. The TD and Ng’onamo, as instructors were not supposed to be participants too.”
One of the participants, who sought for anonymity, said whatever reasons might be given to justify the scenario would not be valid because Kaputa and Ng’onamo were not supposed to be graded by virtue of being course instructors.
“CAF needs to come out and clear the air on this, otherwise it raises a lot of suspicion,” he said.
CAF had not yet responded to our questionaire at the time of going to press yesterday.
On the CAF A licence coaching course passing list, Jack Chamangwana is second best with 357 marks while Stewart Mbolembole is third with 333. The top-11 list also has McDonald Mtetemera (330), Gerald Phiri (327), Ernest Mtawali (325), Bob Mpinganjira (322), Aubrey Nankhuni (322), Nsazurwimo Ramadhan (314), Patrick Mabedi (305) and Yasin Osman (305).
