Flames struggle to attract teams
The construction of Bingu National Stadium was expected to usher in a new era in which Malawi would be able to host more teams, but since the opening of the 40 000-facility in January, the Flames have only played twice at the venue.
Apart from the official opening match in which a Malawi select side played a Chinese club, the senior team has hosted Comoros in African Cup of Nations (Afcon) and Madagascar in Champions of African Nations (Chan).
Football Association of Malawi (FAM) has since said it is struggling to get sparring partners to play Malawi at home—four years after Malawi last hosted Zimbabwe in an international friendly at the closed Kamuzu Stadium.
FAM general secretary Alfred Gunda said it has been hard to find a team willing to play against the Flames at BNS in preparation for home qualifiers against Morocco and Cameroon next year.
The GS said Malawi, currently 116 on Fifa ranking, has a poor bargaining power as they even had to struggle to find the imminent friendly against Tanzania at Uhuru Stadium in Dar es Salaam this Saturday.
“We wanted to have the match at home, but the Tanzanians insisted to host it since we were the ones desperate for the friendly. We did not have a choice but to accept the demand,” he said.
Hosting a match is much cheaper than travelling as the visitors have to foot air tickets and external allowances while the host only pay accommodation and benefit from gate-revenue, according to Gunda.
“High-ranked teams opt to play those above them on the rankings and most of them already had at least two-year plans on Fifa calendar. This has forced us to go for whatever comes on the table. We even tried to book Mozambique for an encounter, but they said they have a tight schedule,” Gunda said.
Director of sports in Ministry of Labour, Youth, Sports and Manpower Development Jameson Ndalama, said they had noted the absence of Flames matches at BNS.
“But we only provide the facilities. We do not organise matches. Otherwise, the facility is indeed under-utilised by our national team,” he said.
Football analyst George Kaudza Masina said Malawi’s poor bargaining forces the Flames to accept anything that comes, thereby compromising the team’s preparations.
“FAM shall remain beggars and keep on accepting whatever comes their way as they do not have the bargaining power due to [Flames] poor ranking and financial standing,” he said.
