Sports council jostles associations
Malawi National Council of Sports (MNCS) has said sports associations should not expect an increase in their respective allocations this year.
This follows a slight reduction in this year’s budget allocation to Ministry of Youth and Sports to K448. 67 million (about $1.7m) from last year’s K448.73 million (about $1.7m).
Sports Council executive secretary George Jana has since advised associations to priotise their activities and come up with ways of generating their own funding.
“Sports associations have to appreciate the need to begin marketing their disciplines in order to generate their own money.
“They [also] need to properly plan their activities so that their resources fit those plans,” said Jana on Thursday.
However, Football Association of Malawi (FAM) which gets the lion’s share from the allocation, said it will be looking with keen interest on how much money will be made available towards football.
FAM presented a budget in the excess of K250 million (about $1m), but if the council’s assertions are anything to go by, then they are most likely to get more or less than the K70 million (about $280 000) they received last year.
FAM president Walter Nyamilandu said: “The allocation that will be made available will be a statement of our desire and intention of qualifying for 2013 Africa Cup of Nations or 2014 World Cup.
“There is no shortcut to success and we need to invest a lot in the team if we want to be a powerhouse and that has to be demonstrated by the budget because every year, the budget that is given to the team is always insufficient and most of the times it forces us to compromise our preparations as we have to live with meagre resources.”
Nyamilandu also said the situation has been worsened by the recent inflation.
Responding to the council’s advice that associations need to generate their own funding to supplement government funding, the FAM president said: “We are doing that through the sale of replica jerseys, revenue from gate collections and TV rights, but it is never sufficient. We [also] have to bear in mind that the national team is the responsibility of the government.”
FAM chief executive officer Suzgo Nyirenda hinted at the possibility of requesting for supplementary funding considering that the Flames and the Under-17 national teams will be taking part in a number of international engagements.
“We have priotised on [2014] World Cup, Africa Cup of Nations and Under-17 African Championship. Besides that, we might qualify for the Nations Cup to be staged in South Africa early next year.
“I foresee the possibility of requesting for supplementary funding as has been the case in the past. Apart from that, we presented the budget before the devaluation of the kwacha. So, in the wake of inflation, things have gone further up,” said Nyirenda.
He added: “Anyway, we’ll wait for confirmation from Sports Council and then we’ll take it up from there.”
Netball Association of Malawi (NAM) which is the second biggest beneficiary said they anticipated that the budget would remain the same.
Said NAM president Rosy Chinunda: “When we presented our budget to Sports Council, it was trimmed, so we expected that it would not be enough.
“Our intentions are that we should embark on fund-raising activities to complement the funding.”
Chinunda disclosed that this year, NAM presented a K78m (about $312 000) budget. Last year they were allocated just over K60m (about $240 000).
