Malindi girls docked 6 points, finish 3rd
Malindi Secondary School from Zomba have finished third in the Cosafa Zone CAF African Schools Championships after being docked six points for featuring ineligible players during the tournament played at Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe.
Malindi won all their matches against Seychelles’Anse Boileau (5-0), South Africa’s Edendale Technical (1-0), Botswana’s Mothamo JSS (1-0) in and Comoros’ GS Ningha (3-0).
All things being equal they were supposed to top the table with 12 points and be crowned champions.
But a complaint from South Africa that some of the players featured in two matches were over 15 years prompted the organisers to investigate the allegations.
Football Association of Malawi (FAM) competitions and communications director Gomezgani Zakazaka, who is the tournament’s director, confirmed that the investigations established that the school indeed used two overaged players.
A statement from Cosafa also said: “According to competition regulations, the eligibility of players stated: “Upper age limit: all players must be a maximum of 15 years old by the end of the calendar year in which the final competition is played [i.e. all players of the teams were born on or after 1 January 2008].
“Two players in the Malindi Secondary School team did not meet this criterion for their games against Anse Boileau [Seychelles], Edendale Technical [SA] and, as such, these results, which were in favour of the Malawian side, have been awarded to their opponents.”
The development means South Africa’s Edendale Technical have won the girls tournament with 12 points and will get K100 million.
Anse Boileau are runners-up with seven points and will get K75 million while Malindi drops to position three with six points.
After missing the top spot Malindi will instead settle for the third place prize of K50 million.
Meanwhile. South Africa’s Clapham High School have won the Boys’ Category after beating Malawi’s Salima Secondary School 1-0 in the final.
Salima will get K75 million runners-up prize.
Malawi Schools Sports Association chairperson Blackson Malamula blamed the development on lack of clarity on the rules and regulations.
He said: “It is unfortunate that this has happened to Malindi Secondary School.
“You can see that even Cosafa has acknowledged that this is not a case of age cheating, but rather a case of misinterpretation of the rules and regulations.
“The players in question are not overaged. They are 15 years old. It’s just that they were not born on or after 1 January 2008.”
Malamula, however, wondered why the competition organisers did not bar the players during registration.
He said: “We wonder why the organisers waited until the players were featured in those two matches when ineligible players are not supposed to be registered in the first place.”
In the girls category, Malindi’s Victoria Nkwala won the Golden Boot Award while her teammate Emily Maulidi won the Golden Glove and Edendale’s Nobhla Mdelwa took the Player of the Tournament accolade while Seychelles won Fair Play Award.
In the boy’s category, Salima’s Ismail Bwanali won the Golden Boot Award, Clapham’s Kamogelo Phokela won the Golden Glove Award his teammate Kgaogelo Monanyane got Player of the Tournament while Angola were Fair Play team of the tournament.
