Silver player vanishes to Mozambique

TNM Super League champions Silver Strikers have cried foul over the sneaking to a Mozambican club of talented left-winger Jimmy Ukonde whom the Bankers invested in while grooming him.

Silver camp, including coach Stein Chirwa, rate highly Ukonde. For this reason, the club paid his secondary school fees and also invested in his career that was on the up. The winger was promoted from the reserve to the senior squad last season and made few appearances.

In several interviews from last month to this Wednesday, Silver chairperson McDonald Mafuta-Mwale suspected scout James Nelito Pondamale might have enticed Ukonde’s parents to sneak out with the player and sign for a Mozambican club under another name.

“My biggest concern is that the guy has big potential. He was our asset and might end up playing for Mozambique national team against Malawi one day. We were grooming him for our team and we have spent some much paying for his school fees. He was on contract for three years,” Mwale claimed in an exclusive interview.

At a recent Transfer Matching System seminar at Chiwembe Technical Centre, Silver raised the matter to FAM asking for their action over the disappearance of the 17-year-old winger.

Put to him that Silver are accusing him of facilitating Ukonde’s disappearance to Mozambique, Pondamale, through e-mail, could not deny the claim, but confirmed to have heard of the same rumours.

“I know the lad pretty well and would advise you to speak to his parents before you write anything in regard of the same, call his father and hear his story before you write anything to do with the lad,” Pondamale said a fortnight ago.

The scout has facilitated transfers of players such Joseph Kamwendo and Chimango Kayira.

But Ukonde’s father, Estavao Steven Ukonde, in an exclusive interview claimed his son was taken to Milanje in Mozambique by his uncle after Silver failed to honour contractual obligations of paying school fees.

“He is playing for an amateur team while pursuing school. There was an arrangement that they would be paying his school fees. He was also not playing and he was being denied allowances. He left for Mozambique out of frustration over the breach of the contract,” the player’s father said from Lilongwe.

According to the father, he is originally from Salaba area in T/A Chithambo in Milanje, where his son is living with his uncle.

But on Wednesday, Mwale described the father’s claims as “nonsense. Let them say what they want. We are moving on”.

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traced the player through Facebook, but he could not respond when asked over his new club. His Facebook status shows he is based in Maputo and works for Home Designing.

Most Malawian players trek to Mozambique for better perks, which can go as far as $1 000 (K400 000) per month. But Fifa regulations only restrict international transfers of minors (below 18).

Local custodian of the Fifa regulations, Casper Jangale, on Wednesday said local amateurs can sign professional contracts on certain preconditions, including that they cannot get big money.

Silver have recently lost to Mozambican teams players such as Chipiliro Jose, Ndaziona Chilemba and Clement Mvula.

Jose told our sister newspaper, The Nation, that he had not changed his particulars and plays for Textile Africa alongside Jimmy Chikulekule.

Several footballers contacted in Mozambique over the last two months had no idea of Ukonde’s whereabouts. Some speculated that he was at Chibuto FC, once an employer for Malawians such as Godfrey Masonda.

“You would encounter supposed Mozambican players using that country’s names for opposing teams only to be shocked when they introduced themselves to us as Malawians in vernacular,” Masonda said in an exclusive interview in March.