National Sports

FAM urges clubs to form youth sides

FAM and Sulom have urged Super League clubs to refrain from player poaching by setting up youth or reserve sides.

Football Association of Malawi (FAM) president Walter Nyamilandu and his Sulom counterpart Innocent Bottomani said it is only through the establishment of youth sides that teams can develop their own players other than poaching from other teams.

Said Nyamilandu: “If a team has a youth side, it is easy to develop and make them adopt the culture and system of their club other than buying or poaching which can be costly as teams spend a lot of money on transfer fees.”

The FAM president noted that in the past, teams used to concentrate on developing players from their junior sides which is not the case these days.

“Great players such as Jack Chamangwana, Boniface Maganga, Kennedy and late Holman Malunga and Bob Mpinganjira played for youth teams before being drafted into main teams where they made a mark,” said Nyamilandu.

He, therefore, urged clubs that do not have nursery teams to adopt teams from the FMB Under-20 leagues.

In his remarks, Bottomani noted that it is unforunate that even clubs which have nursery teams concentrate on poaching.

“Poaching also breeds misunderstandings and disputes,” said Bottomani.

Among the Super League teams that have either youth or reserve sides are Azam Tigers, Mighty Wanderers, Silver Strikers and Blue Eagles.

However, even these teams focus on signing already-established players.

Some of the players that graduated from youth sides are Vivian Damalekani Jnr (Tigers) and Victor Mpinganjira (Wanderers). n

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