Time up for ‘bogus’ competitions
Local clubs have asked Football Association of Malawi (FAM) to come up with measures that will prevent companies, organisations and individuals coming up with competitions whose sponsorship packages are not paid up-front to the football mother body.
Big Bullets, Mighty Wanderers and Silver Strikers, who have been victims of some bogus competitions previously, believe unscrupulous people must not be allowed to use football as bait for personal gains.
In 2012, Blue Eagles beat Bullets on post-match penalties to win the K12 million Fellowship Association of Malawi (Fama) Cup but the organisers failed to honour some prize money obligations.
The two teams were expected to get K3 million and K1 million as champions and runners-up respectively. Meanwhile, the Peter Mutharika Southern Region Women Football League is yet to conclude the 2013/14 season because, according to National Women Football Committee (NWFC) chairperson Severia Chalira, they are yet to be granted the final K300 000 package from their sponsor. Mutharika signed a three-year sponsorship deal with women football in 2011.
“We plead with FAM to ensure that prospective sponsors make funding readily available before competitions roll into action to avoid being exploited and dumped unceremoniously,” said Bullets chairperson Kondi Msungama.
“It is high time entities are stopped from taking advantage of our poverty to organise bogus competitions and fail to help the teams gain financially.”
Nomads general secretary Mike Butao concurred with Msungama that the current setup, which gives prospective sponsors freedom to release money when contests are already in progress or have concluded, is not healthy as it brings chaos.
Butao said Malawi should borrow a leaf from countries such as South Africa where sponsors deposit money into the bank accounts of competition organisers before officially signing sponsorship contracts.
His counterpart at Silver Strikers, Mike Tembo, said FAM should also ensure they set minimum sponsorship packages for potential financiers of contests and guarantee that participating teams are given money to prepare for competitions.
He added that due to the existing loopholes in the sponsorship contracts of competitions, some people have the audacity to wait for gate collections from their “sponsored” contest, to be used as prize money and even walk away with profits.
“Football is an expensive sport to run and nobody should be allowed to take us for a ride. FAM should look at the nature of the competition and determine a minimum package needed to hold such events. Terms of references [ToRs] must be spelt out clearly, ” Tembo said.
The plea by the giant soccer outfits follows recent trends whereby entities have been outwardly showing commitment to sponsor football leagues, bonanzas and cups but fail to actualise the deals with adequate funding even after the final matches are conducted.
Tembo claims that up to now, Silver Strikers are yet to get a K200 000 outstanding balance of their K1 million prize for winning the K10 million Lilongwe University College of Law and Professional Studies Charity Bonanza in April this year.
However, FAM’s competitions officer Gomezgani Zakazaka told Nation on Sunday that FAM has started licensing all competitions this year to deal with the challenge after receiving complaints from teams.
“This was one of the issues FAM’s congress meeting at Livingstonia Hotel in Salima on November 16 2013 thoroughly discussed. The congress came up with the decision of licensing all local football competitions starting this year. Now, we value solid paperwork agreements rather than verbal contracts,” he said.
