Walter free to ‘stand again’
Football Association of Malawi (FAM) legal affairs committee chairperson Jabbar Alide says the soccer governing body’s president Walter Nyamilandu is free to seek re-election because the law does not bar him.
At its annual general meeting (AGM) held in Mangochi on Saturday, the FAM general assembly amended its constitution, limiting the president’s terms to three.
Nyamilandu is currently serving his fourth term as president and some quarters feel it is high time he gave others a chance to manage.
But in an interview yesterday, Alide said: “The amended statutes will be effected next year and if he wants to stand again, he is free to do so because the laws do not bar him.
“The law cannot be effected retrospectively.”
However, Nyamilandu, who in the past twice declared he would not contest only to change his tune later, reiterated that he will not seek re-election.
“Nothing has changed. As stated earlier, I have other challenges and responsibilities at a higher level from where I can also best serve Malawi football,” he said.
In his foreword at the AGM, Nyamilandu admitted that the performance of the Flames remains a concern, having slipped on the Fifa rankings due to unsatisfactory performance.
“This undesirable outcome has happened at the time when FAM has done everything possible to thoroughly prepare the team through a series of friendly matches and recruited an expatriate coach to take charge of the team.
“The biggest setback has been lack of experience of the squad which comprises young players at a critical juncture when the team required to be overhauled and rebuilt from bottom up,” he said.
However, the FAM president said despite lack of progress and failure to meet the expectations of the fans, “the team has given us hope for the future, having injected talented fresh blood and adopted continental style of play that is pleasing to the eye and promising to be the winning formula”.
“The major weakness has been inability to create goal scoring opportunities and to consistently find the back of the net to give us the much-needed positive results.”
He further stated that FAM has taken a keen interest in the development of grassroots football.
“We now have an operational youth football academy that is being piloted in Blantyre, targeting schools within the Mpira Village vicinity. We intend to run the pilot phase for a year in Blantyre and later, we will escalate the model to the rest of the country.
“In the same reporting period, we have seen interest from other non-State development stakeholders, such as Madonna through Raising Malawi, who have an interest to partner with us in developing football,” he said. n
