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Mwawi is our property–NAM

  • We look inside Mwawi’s letter
  • It’s intimidatory, says Magombo-Munthali

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NAM’s warning letter to Mwawi Kumwenda proves right her manager Hlupikire Chalamba’s insistence that the shooter’s return to Queens is not automatic.

Mwawi: It pains so much
Mwawi: It pains so much

“You are not exemplary. Your integrity is questionable. And whether on New Zealand club Tactix assignment or not you remain and shall always remain NAM’s property,” warns the scathing letter signed by the association’s president Rosy Chinunda.

The warning, issued after a disciplinary hearing for Mwawi’s shunning of the Queens’ 2014 World Fast5 trip to New Zealand, skirts around issues of the national team’s game bonus woes while pouncing on her ‘false’ claims that the trip coincided with an appointment for dental surgery in South Africa.

“We would like to bring to your attention that as a Malawi national team player, you are under NAM [Netball Association of Malawi] and you shall continue to report to NAM in any matter concerning netball. Further, please be advised that under section 3 of the NAM constitution, NAM is the sole authority responsible for regulating the game of netball in the Republic of Malawi,” Chinunda wrote on March 8 2015.

Mwawi earned more NAM’s wrath when she allegedly told the disciplinary hearing that she does not report to the association and that she was under no obligation to furnish a medical report proving her trip to South Africa as NAM did not sponsor the travel.

In that respect, Chinunda schooled Mwawi that she has an obligation to furnish NAM with medical reports even in the situation that the trip has been sponsored by her club.

“Further, your conduct in this case casts doubts on your integrity as a national team player. Kindly be reminded that any national team player, regardless of the club she is playing for, is required to provide evidence to NAM in cases where the player has failed to honour a Queens call-up for training and you are not exempted from that requirement,” reads the letter in part.

Former Queens shooter Linda Magombo-Munthali, whose fight for players’ welfare cost her national team call up, on Thursday said while she thinks she cannot intelligently comment on Mwawi’s warning, “it shows that NAM is just skirting the real issue of addressing the welfare of the players”.

“In future, I would advise Mwawi to stay true to herself. Honesty is the best policy. If, indeed, true that she did not go to SA, she should have just told them the truth that she won’t play for the team because NAM doesn’t have the welfare of players as its priority. This just gives NAM a scapegoat for not addressing the real issues,” said Magombo-Munthali who is the only voice in netball daring to question the iron-fisted NAM.

Mwawi last November told the press: “It pains so much that my colleagues are suffering in silence for fear of being dropped from the squad.”

Queens players’ bonus woes started at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in India. They did not get $500 each as agreed, but NAM deducted K29 000 from each player for shoes the players rejected as being inappropriate. The allowances were paid in 2014 at a 2010 exchange rate.

The Ministry of Youth and Sports, Sports Council and the Malawi Olympic Committee (MOC) back NAM officials.

In Mwawi’s absence, Queens have gone on an eight-game losing streak.

On return from England last December for test series, Chinunda said: “We listen to criticism and act even when you write, we take note of that, but she cannot insult us. Sometimes people get drunk with money.”

 

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One Comment

  1. Hang on a minute, at what point did Mwami became a property for NAM?
    Mwami, this is the right time to quit the national team, no one let alone NAM should be taking you or the other players for granted. The national team does not want to pay you your hardly earned allowances so what do they think you would be surviving on? Besides when you break your leg they will dump you like a condom. And even if you play for them for 20 years you will never get a pension so why wasting your time when you have other means of making money.
    Patriotism ili apo koma a NAM mukudziwa kuti utsamunda ndi thangata zinatha kale kale?

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