Silver changes policy on players, to groom their own talent

Super League champions Silver Strikers claim to have changed their policy of buying the best talent on the domestic scene and will now concentrate on grooming their own talent.

The Bankers, who are sponsored by the Reserve Bank of Malawi, are known for their spending thrift that earned them the nickname Malawi’s Manchester City.

Club chairperson McDonald Mafuta-Mwale said starting this season, they will not go for any big-name player as the tendency has in the recent past resulted in sour relationship with other Super League teams.

He said this in reaction to continued speculation that Big Bullets’ target Pilirani Zonda is also linked to them.

“We have made a decision that we are not getting any player from any other Super League team.

“The focus now will be to groom our own players through the reserve side or buy young players in either the youth, rural or lower leagues,” said Mafuta-Mwale.

He added: “We also realised that the tendency of getting already established players brought us into bad books with other teams. It is also costly. So, we are no longer targeting big name players.”

The Bankers boss said at the moment, the only notable players that his team wants to sign are Ignatious Makoloni and Blessings Kameza from relegated Evirom.

In the recent years, Silver have managed to get almost every player of their choice such as Ndaziona Chatsalira, Charles Swini, Frank Banda, Chipiliro Jose, Young Chimodzi Jnr, Bernard Namangwiyo  Rodrick Gonani, Chawanangwa Kaonga and Lazarus Nyemera who, along the way, helped them win the Super League championship three times on the trot.

Apparently, other teams such as Mighty Wanderers, Civil Service [Civo] United and Blue Eagles have said their concentration this season is on up-and-coming players.

Said Wanderers chairperson George Chamangwana: “Apart from Bongani Zulu [from Evirom] our other trialists are either from the lower leagues or from our youth team.

“Of course, there are others that might join us as free agents such as Luka Milanzi and Innocent Jere. Otherwise, we are not ready to buy, afterall we do not have the money.”

Civo’s general secretary Rashid Mtelela said: “For us it has been a long-standing policy to develop young talent be it from within Lilongwe or from rural areas and good examples are Joseph Kamwendo and Andrew Chikhosi. But there were times when we would recruit already established talent.

“However, this season we’ll stick to our policy and if anything we’ll just strengthen the squad with a few promising players from the lower leagues.”

Blue Eagles coach Deklerk Msakakuona also said their focus is on up-and-coming players this season.

Big Bullets leads the chart as the team which has targeted a number of established players from other teams such as TizgowereKumwenda and Victor Limbani [Blantyre United], Zonda and MussaManyenje [Epac].