Lilongwe has supporters, Blantyre has fans
Those who earn a living through making sense out of a series of seemings of the mind, call it negative charisma.
Yes, the thing you notice that when one man walks into a room, it feels like 100 people have deserted it.
And Blantyre football fans have loads of negative charisma; singing, dancing and packing the Kamuzu Stadium terraces for their own benefits while their teams languish in financial quagmire.
You can say that when a fan steps into the stadium it is like a million supporters have instantly deserted Malawi football.
On the latest evidence of Luso TV Clash of Giants’ gate collections, the situation is different with Lilongwe supporters. There you have a departure between a fan and supporter.
My encounter with Caps United in Zimbabwe around 2005 drove home this distinction.
On the eve of a Harare derby between Caps and Dynamos, a supporter approached the then Caps’ Malawian striker Gift Makoloni promising him an equivalent of K50 000 ($125) if he scored a goal in that derby.
The ex-MTL Wanderers forward eventually told me that a supporter had earlier given a Caps player a car for scoring a cup-winning goal.
The effect on Makoloni was so great; he was in battle mood like a leopard visualizing how he would score and earn the instant cash.
It was thus understandable that after the derby ended in a draw Makoloni looked dejected as if a train had hit him.
Then there are the Ultras of Al Ahly in Egypt. These supporters are so organized and powerful they produce their own newsletters and have branches to advance their ideals.
In these countries, those who claim to be supporters invest their time, energy, money and other resources into their beloved clubs.
In the United Kingdom, supporters buy season-long ticket booklets and ordinary shares for their teams.
It is thus refreshing that Lilongwe supporters such as Austin Kasito do not earn a living from the clubs they claim to follow but rather work hard to make their clubs financially better off.
For the Blantyre fans, we now know the actual reason why there was so much noise when the Kamuzu Stadium was closed. A gold mine was shut.
Domestic football needs its Cashgate version to arrest the institutionalized gate fraud.
