FAM working on Flames friendlies

The Football Association of Malawi (FAM) is arranging friendly games against Mozambique and Zimbabwe to prepare the Flames ahead of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.

While confirming that friendlies were being arranged on Monday, on arrival from a Cosafa meeting in Lesotho, FAM general secretary Suzgo Nyirenda could neither confirm nor deny that he friendlies will be against Mozambique and Zimbabwe, insisting that identities of the opponents will be revealed at a press briefing to be held soon.

“I have just arrived and we are in the process of arranging friendly games, but I cannot divulge much information now. We are yet to complete talks with some football associations. I will communicate in two days’ time on the progress we have made,” said Nyirenda.

Information from Nyirenda himself to FAM president Walter Nyamilandu, which The Nation has seen, mentions Mozambique and Zimbabwe as the associations which have offered to host the Flames next month.

A FAM source who asked for anonymity said due to financial challenges the association is facing, it will fund the trip from a special account and the Flames will travel by road to the two countries to fulfil the assignments next month.

“The team needs to be active. When we had offers from FAs of the two countries, we could not hesitate to take them. As FAM, we had to take the initiative if we are to perform well. We hope government will assist us in future so that we can have more friendly games,” said the source.

He said FAM will ask technical director John Kaputa to take charge of the Flames for the two games and he will also be responsible for drilling the players in preparation for the games.

According to information from the Confederation of African Football (CAF), the draw for the qualifying stages of the Orange Afcon 2015 will take place in South Africa next month.

The following format was agreed upon: A preliminary round composed of 10 teams who will each go head-to-head against one another in two-leg matches. The five qualifying teams will then join the other 43 teams to form 12 groups of four teams.

The winner from each group will qualify for a place in the final tournament in Morocco along with the three best second-placed teams.

For the preliminary round, CAF will draw based on Fifa rankings while the group stages draw is based on CAF rankings, whereby the bottom 10 will be involved in the preliminaries.