Queens pullsout of netballchampionship

 Malawi National Netball Team, the Queens have pulled out of Africa Netball Championship which will be held in Gaborone, Botswana due to lack of funds.

Netball Association of Malawi (NAM) general secretary Isaac Chimwala in an interview on Saturday confirmed the Queens will miss the 10-day tournament scheduled to start today after failing to secure funding from government.

Malawi National Councils of Sports board chairperson Sunduzwayo Madise in an interview on Saturday said NAM was dealing with Ministry of Sports on the failed trip.

He said: “I knew there was going to be a competition but the matter was being dealt between our secretariat as a conduit and government. So, the director of sports [Jameson Ndalama] may be best placed to comment.”

Ndalama said in an interview that funding was not ready.

“We were told that funding would be available soon after the budget is passed. But up to now, the funding is not yet ready,” he said.

NAM requested K123 million extra funding for the Africa Netball Championship, having exhausted their K170 million allocation for the current financial year against a K820 million proposed budget.

Last week, government allocated funding for the Queens participation at the tournament in the Mid-Year Budget.

However, Minister of Youth and Sports Uchizi Mkandawire told our sister paper The Nation that the funding might not be ready since the budget had just been passed.

NAM now faces a fine of at least $5 000 (about K8.5 million) for pulling out of the competition, according to Chimwala.