Football Association of Malawi’s (FAM) tentative calendar for next season is likely to hit a snag as government has already thrown a spanner in the works.
According to FAM competitions officer Gomezgani Zakazaka, in their revised tentative calendar, they had planned to have the Presidential Cup kick-off later this month at district level, but Minister of Youth and Sports Enoch Chihana has said that is not possible as it would mean having two editions of the same competition in the same fiscal year.
Said Zakazaka: “In the past two to three years, the Presidential Cup has been kicking off as late as March unlike in the first two years when it started at the beginning of the year.
“So, we would like to normalise the situation to be in line with our harmonised calendar and our proposal is that Presidential Cup should start towards the end of this month and then have finals played during the second week of May, but that is subject to the response of all our stakeholders.”
But Chihana said: “Government operates on a budget and you cannot have two editions of the same competition being played within one financial year. If anything, it has to be after June because that’s when the next financial year starts.”
Zakazaka said they will first send the draft calendar to their stakeholders for their input and the determination on the way forward will be based on their responses.
