Malawi football calendar under threat

Malawi’s second-tier regional leagues have taken a hard line on teams on the issue of affiliation fees by declaring that no team will be registered unless they pay upfront.

The development follows clubs failure to pay the fees in the past, a situation that led to the leagues failing to pay match officials.

Southern Region Football League (SRFL) chairperson Trouble Kalua, his Central Region (CRFL) counterpart Dini Josaya Banda and Northern Region Football League (NRFL) fixtures secretary Dominic Msowoya confirmed having put their foot down on the issue of affiliation fees.

Kalua said they are anticipating a much leaner number of teams because going by past experience, not all the teams will be able to meet the requirement.

“Unlike the past system whereby we could allow the teams to register without paying affiliation fees, this time around we’ll be strict and so far the indications are that we’ll have fewer teams compared to the past.

“We would rather have a small number of teams and manage the league professionally other than have many teams and then fail to settle officiation fees as was the case last season,” said Kalua.

He also said the league is seriously considering reviewing the affiliation fees which is currently pegged at K80 000 (about $200).

“We will seriously consider raising the affiliation fees because the operational costs have gone up due to the devaluation of the kwacha,” he said.

He also said the league’s executive committee was scheduled to meet later yesterday to come up with the tentative kickoff date.

“But we are hoping that in the next two weeks, we should have started so that we are in line with the other leagues,” said Kalua.

Josiah-Banda said there are quite a number of teams that have not registered because they are struggling to raise the [K80 000] affiliation fees.

“We put a condition that unless they pay 70 percent of the K80 000 affiliation [about K56 000], they will not be allowed to register.

“We have started on a low note because quite a number of teams are yet to register and our feeling is that they are struggling to raise the money, but then we cannot do otherwise because as a league, we also have obligations to ensure smooth running of the league,” said Josaya-Banda.

The CRFL boss also said they will give the teams a two-week period to pay the fees or shut the door on them.

“We feel two weeks is enough period for them to raise the money. In fact there are over 20 teams that have expressed interest to join the league through Division II, but then we want to stick to 20 teams in each division,” he said.

On his part, Msowoya said they are scheduled to kickoff this coming Saturday as the majority of the clubs have paid K30 000 (about $75) each affiliation fees.

“We have 20 teams and so far 15 teams have paid the affiliation fees in full while the remaining five have met the required down payment which is not bad,” said Msowoya.

Meanwhile, all the three leagues have since said they are optimistic of meeting the December deadline set by FAM to wind up their leagues as they will also be playing midweek.

Super League of Malawi (Sulom) general secretary Williams Banda also said despite the one-month break, they are confident that they will be able to meet the deadline.

“There is no problem, we’ll be able to meet the schedule,” he said.

Football Association of Malawi (FAM) chief executive officer Suzgo Nyirenda said it is important that all the leagues should adhere to the harmonised calendar to ensure smooth operations.

“We are aware though that in the South and North, they have not yet kicked off, but we expect them to start by the end of July and finish late December or at least during the first two weeks of January next year. The requirement is realistic as they will also be playing midweek,” said Nyirenda.