Sports Council faults NAM on coaches

The Malawi National Council of Sports (MNCS) has said the Netball Association of Malawi (NAM) would have handled the recruitment of coaches of the national teams better by going through the normal process.

Council executive secretary George Jana said this on Wednesday after Peace Chawinga-Kalua and Samuel Kanyenda turned down offers as assistant coaches for the Queens and Under-21 respectively. Mary Waya and Connis Mhone accepted their appointments as coaches.

Jana said the development mirrored short-comings in the recruitment exercise and NAM should have considered abandoning the whole exercise.

Jana claimed that NAM did not heed their advice to conduct a proper recruitment exercise.

“We advised them to advertise the posts because in so doing, they could have avoided all this controversy, but they chose to do it their on way and we did not want to dictate. We felt in the circumstances, a rigorous interview process would have been ideal.

“I remember taking up the issue with the president [Rosy Chinunda] and the vice-president [Chimwemwe Kachingwe], though informally, but I guess they chose to do it their way,” said Jana.

He, however, said the council will still pursue the matter with NAM.

“Of course, at this stage we cannot correct the situation, but we will be talking to them to find out how they wish to proceed because one would want to look at it carefully considering what is coming out from the grapevine, but for those that have accepted, we can maintain them,” said Jana.

Chinunda argued that they could not conduct the proper recruitment exercise because the coaches are being hired temporarily.

“If we were looking for permanent coaches, then it could have been ideal, but these will be there on temporary basis.

“That is why we short-listed the cream and then appointed those that we felt would suit the roles. Olo a ku football anapanga zomwezo [even FAM used the same process in hiring the Flames coaching panel,” said Chinunda.

Among her grounds for rejecting the offer, Chawinga-Kalua said she wanted clarification on some of the terms of the contract, citing Article 5.1 which states that the assistant coach shall not undertake any activities, private or otherwise, which shall interfere with the carrying out of his/her duties as contemplated by the agreement.

She also said she had reservations on her reporting to NAM instead of her immediate boss who is supposed to be the national coach.

On her part, Kanyenda said he was not comfortable to work as an assistant coach for the junior national team after he had worked for the senior team for over five years.