Sulom negotiates for sponsorship increase
Super League of Malawi (Sulom) claims it has successfully negotiated for an increase in the Super League sponsorship with effect from next season following fruitful discussions with TNM.
Sulom’s newly elected vice-president Daud Suleman yesterday said the two parties agreed to raise the sponsorship, but what remains is to agree on the percentage of increase.
“We have had fruitful meetings with TNM so far to plan for the forthcoming season and among other crucial areas, we discussed the need to review the sponsorship to which they agreed.
“TNM are agreeable to that to enable us to effectively run the league. Discussions are still in progress, but they made a proposal on the percentage and so did we and it is now just a matter of meeting somewhere. But I can confirm that we’ll have an increased package next season,” said Suleman.
He also claimed that TNM has accepted their request to court other sponsors on condition that they should not be in direct conflict with their business.
The Sulom veep said the developments are in line with what the flagship league current leadership promised in their manifestos.
However, TNM sponsorship and public relations manager Limbani Nsapato could neither confirm nor deny Sulom’s claims.
“As partners in the sponsorship of the TNM Super League, we are always in discussion on matters of the league [and] when we have new matters of the league, we will come back to the media to announce,” said Nsapato in a response to a written questionnaire.
Commenting on the move to open up to other sponsors, Nsapato said: “TNM has always been open to other sponsors [as per contract agreement]. The only sponsors not permitted in the agreement are those that compete with TNM.”
The move by Sulom follows calls by some clubs to have prizes reviewed, arguing that they were on the lower side.
Currently, TNM sponsors the flagship football league to the tune of K65 million, but the money that goes directly towards the team prizes is K20 million.
Current champions Big Bullets, immediate past champions Silver Strikers and Civo United were some of the teams that claimed that the K9 million winner’s cheque and the subsequent prizes are not satisfactory compared to what teams spend on the marathon.
TNM head of marketing Sobhuza Ngwenya is on record as having said that what TNM spends on the league is more than K100 million per season when they factor in issues such as marketing. n
