Fischer longs to become oldest active footballer

Fischer Kondowe craves to become the longest serving Super League player and the oldest active footballer in the country.

However, his dream can be shattered because, according to analysts, Malawi football authorities’ laxity to keep records and statistics puts the legitimacy of his ambition in doubt.

The 37-year-old Big Bullets winger, who won Man-of-the-Match accolade as his team thrashed Airborne Rangers 3-0 in the Super League two weeks ago, has been playing high-level football for 16 years.

He made his debut for the People’s Team in 1998.

Kondowe is among the current longest serving footballers in the league along with teammate James Chilapondwa and Moyale Barracks’ defender Lameck Thindwa.

“I want to prove to the world that one can still be a good footballer on the domestic scene regardless of age as long as he keeps fit and follows a good diet,” said the dreadlocked star, who played professional football in South Africa and had been a regular player in the Flames squad.

“Being a hard-worker in terms of physical exercises and a vegetarian, I believe I will fulfill my dream of becoming the longest serving and oldest active footballer on the land. I still have at least a decade of playing active soccer.”

However, analysts told Nation on Sunday within the week that local football authorities’ disinterest to keep such players’ statistics, which act as the benchmark for record breaking in both league and international matches, can undermine the credibility of Kondowe’s aspirations.

According to former Flames coach Yasin Osman, the issue of players’ age-cheating in Malawi football makes things even more complicated.

The ex-Mighty Wanderers player said there must be a trusted mechanism to determine and clarify the age of players before attempting to break such statistical records to prevent age-cheaters from becoming record holders.

“For Kondowe’s attempt to be conceivable, he must first produce proper and impeccable evidence about his real age, such as a birth certificate because sometimes individuals can play tricks with their dates of birth to fool the nation,” he said.

Football players’ agent Felix Ngamanya Sapao concurred with Osman that it will be a tall order for Kondowe to achieve his objective without raising any doubt over its credibility among soccer lovers because Malawi has not been good enough at keeping local football records.

He blamed Football Association of Malawi (FAM), Super League of Malawi (Sulom) and the local media for not being aggressive in ensuring minute details about football players, such as the oldest active player, all-time top scorer, footballers’ passing accuracy in matches, the most red-carded player and the most capped footballer.

FAM players matching systems manager Casper Jangale agreed that they have not done such documentation despite its importance to the improvement and excitement of the game.

He, however, said FAM intends to initiate a research project to retrieve important data lost since Malawi football was registered with Fifa in 1965 and since the beginning of the Super League in 1986.

“It will be a small but significant project aimed at getting details from former soccer administrators, players and journalists who are still alive,” said Jangale.

Sulom president Innocent Botomani said they are trying their best to feed their computerised systems with every important detail about the performance and the background information of Super League players.

On his part, Sports Writers Association of Malawi (Swam) president Peter Kanjere admitted that local sports reporters have contributed to the scarcity of credible information about local players both current and retired.

“It is high time we, sports reporters, started going beyond event coverage to delve into the kind of investigative reporting that can keep the public abreast of vital information about our stars. Our football requires analytical reporting to make it more entertaining and encourage future stars,” he said.

In top footballing nations such as England, France and Spain, soccer stars’ statistics and records add excitement to the game and encourage future generations to aspire for greatness as they strive to break records achieved by previous soccer legends.

Just last week, according to Osman, history was made in Brazil when Germany’s 36-year-old striker Miroslav Klose scored against Brazil during the Fifa World Cup semi-final to chalk his 16th goal, the highest number of goals ever scored by an individual at the global showpiece. Brazil lost the match 7-1, the worst defeat the hosts have suffered since 1920.