Uncertainty surrounds the Malawi Under-21 national netball team’s participation in the Cosana Under-21 Championship in Windhoek, Namibia between May 1 and 5.
Netball Association of Malawi (NAM) general secretary Yamikani Kauma in an interview yesterday said funding from the government through the Malawi National Council of Sports might not be available on time.
“The team’s funding might not be ready on time and we are banking on a potential sponsor to bail us out,” she said.
NAM is keeping fingers crossed that the Under-21’s K140 million budget will be approved for the team to go into camp early this month.
The Confederation of Southern Africa Netball Associations (Cosana) organised the event as a preparatory tournament for the region’s teams that qualified for the Under-21 Netball World Youth Cup in Gibraltar in September.
Kauma said they are also waiting to see if it will be worth participating in the competition where highly-rated teams such as South Africa and Zimbabwe will not take part.
She said: “We would like to see if the Cosana event promises to be competitive. It will be a folly to go to the tournament and find out that big names such as South Africa and Zimbabwe, who also qualified for the Netball World Youth Cup, are absent. We will wait to see that at least one of these teams confirms their participation.”
Malawi National Council of Sports has been dodgy if they will fund the trip.
Last month, Sports Council said they would confirm if they will fund the trip after the passing of the national budget.
But despite the budget passing a week ago, the council has remained noncommittal.
Yesterday, Sports Council spokesperson Edgar Ntulumbwa did not respond on the issue of the Under-21 netball team’s funding by press time.
The Malawi Under-21 national netball team has not regrouped since they qualified for the World Youth Cup a year ago.
In October last year, NAM planned to send the Under-21 team to South Africa alongside the Senior Queens for Test Series matches as part of their preparations, but that failed after the hosts said the majority of their Under-21 players could be in school.
So far, the junior Queens, who are in Group D with South Africa, Barbados, Fiji and Trinidad & Tobago, are the only ones in the pool to start serious tune-ups for the global showpiece.
