Malawi National Council of Sports has advised Football Association of Malawi (FAM) to spend within its allocated budget of K1.5 billion.
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Sports Council chief executive officer Henry Kamata in an interview yesterday said they will not entertain extra funding once the association exhausts its 2025/26 subvention.
He said: “Treasury allocated K1.5 billion to the national football team’s engagements while the national netball team’s engagements were given K1 billion.
“It is important to note that the allocation to national football team’s engagements is over 200 percent increase in funding from last year’s funding.
“It is imperative to spend within the budget allocation because of resource constraints. It is not permissible to spend outside what one has been allocated.”
Sport Council’s stance comes after FAM announced that it spent K1 billion on Flames arrears, mostly on players’ allowances and bonuses as well as air tickets.
FAM president Fleetwood Haiya, speaking at the association’s annual general meeting in Salima last weekend, said they had spent K1 billion, which government disbursed two weeks ago through Sports Council, on debts accumulated by the Flames.
The arrears were incurred between September 2024 and May 2025 when the Flames played in 2026 Fifa World Cup qualifiers, Confederation of African Football (CAF) African Nations Championship (Chan) and 2025 Cosafa Cup in South Africa.
With just three months into the 2025/26 financial year that rolled out in April, FAM is remaining with K500 million.
The Flames will resume Fifa World Cup qualifiers in September against Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, Liberia and Namibia.
FAM general secretary Alfred Gunda in an interview on Monday indicated that they will be engaging Ministry of Sports through Sports Council on the need for extra funding.
“Upon exhausting what is remaining we will liquidate and ask for consideration where there will be a need. Every engagement is a stand-alone project that we submit for consideration,” he said.
Apart from government funding, FAM gets K250 million from Flames’ officials sponsor FDH Bank plc and Fifa grant for travelling expenses which was at K420 million in the 2024/25 financial cycle.
