Public voting for the 2025 Malawi Sport Awards has officially opened, with organisers calling on Malawians to actively participate in selecting the country’s finest athletes.
Malawi Sport Awards chairperson Limbani Matola in an interview confirmed that preparations for the prestigious annual event are progressing smoothly, with the process now entering a crucial public participation phase.
He said: “At the moment, we are inviting the public to put in their voice to the process through voting. We’ve come up with an independent panel of judges, and now we are calling upon all stakeholders, sport-loving Malawians, to participate by voting.”
Matola said the independent panel of judges has already shortlisted the top three nominees in each category and the responsibility now lies with the public to determine the winners.
Sport-loving Malawians can cast their votes through a dedicated online portal, awards.malawisport.mw, where all categories and nominees are listed.
“They can vote through a dedicated web portal, awards.malaisport.mw. If they click on or they go on awards.malaisport.mw, they’ll be able to see all the categories there, all the top nominees there, and they should be able to cast their vote by just clicking on their preferred candidate or nominee,” he said.
Voters simply need to select their preferred candidates in each category.
The voting process will run until February 20, after which votes will be aggregated to determine the winners.
Matola stressed that public participation is vital to the credibility and ownership of the awards.
“This is their game. This is their sport. They like it. They are Malawians, and the Malawi Sport Awards are for Malawi. All Malawians are called upon to participate,” he said.
The winners will represent Malawi at the African Union Sports Council (AUSC) Region 5 Awards scheduled for May 23 in Angola.
While expressing satisfaction with the initial response since voting opened, Matola acknowledged that there is still room for improvement.
He said: “So far we are happy, though there’s room for improvement. That is why we are calling upon all stakeholders, sports associations, athletes, technical officials, journalists and the general public to rally behind this process and own it, because it is for Malawi.”
Meanwhile, associations have already started canvassing votes for their nominated athletes.
Chess Association of Malawi (Chessam), which has produced nominees in six categories called for the sport’s lovers to vote for Chessam as sports association of the year, Rachel Jailoss (junior female athlete of the year), Joseph Mwale (sportsman of the year), Mpilo Mizere (sports administrator of the year), Gilton Mkumbwa (technical official of the year) and .
E-Sports also called for the public to recognise the strides made by voting for the association as well as David Masiye in junior male sportsperson of the year category.
In a statement, taekwondo Association of Malawi in statement also rallied for national champion Lucy Mphande who is nominated in junior female sport person of the year category.
The statement reads in part: “Let’s all help in voting for our taekwondo champions Lucy Mphande.”
Introduced five years ago, the Malawi Sport Awards celebrate outstanding performances across various sporting disciplines and aim to recognise excellence while promoting sports development in the country.
