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| Columns |
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by
George Kasakula, 12 March 2004
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13:49:49
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Punish Bullets
Super League of Malawi (Sulom) had no business calling Super Escom to a disciplinary hearing in response to the electricians’ move of writing a letter to Caf and other bodies cancelling registration of Emmanuel Chipatala as a Bakili Bullets player. In fact, it is BB themselves that Sulom must call to a disciplinary hearing for duping Super Escom and issuing cheques they pretty well knew would end bouncing back to drawer for the player. Bakili Bullets are enjoying unprecedented massive sponsorship from President Bakili Muluzi at the moment. In fact, they went about bragging that they splashed over K6 million on buying players. It is a shame, and to the dismay of many, that the figure is now proving to be a figment of somebody’s mind. Super Escom, on the other hand, is a small team barely making ends meet. And all it was demanding was its money for its player. What is wrong with this? Which league have they put to disrepute as Sulom is shamelessly claiming? Maybe Bakili Bullets league.
Tired of nomads
The wrangling in MTL Wanderers camp is getting the club nowhere. It is pretty boring and, I should assume, tiring to everybody involved. It is now quite clear that nobody is resigning from the team’s executive even though they know that their firing of coach Franco Ndawa and his assistant Felix Fosko days after they registered two impressive wins was a classic example of poor decision-making in club management. But the rambling has gone on for a month. Meetings have been scheduled, postponed, missed and then rescheduled. The supporters should just accept that their call for the executive to resign has come to nought. Meanwhile, there are new revelations that the money meant to buy T-shirts for supporters donated by President Bakili Muluzi has been used for other things in the club. I have no problems with this. My only concern is that the supporters, who were to be the direct beneficiaries of the T-shirts, were not consulted, let alone informed, in good time about this. Again poor decision-making here.
Diminishing force?
Are Manchester United a diminishing force after being booted out of the Champions League by FC Porto of Portugal without even reaching the quarterfinals, something that has not happened for the eight years? If you ask someone called Gracian Tukula and one Gideon Munthali, they will tell you that this is the end of Man U’s dominance. Mr Tukula will add that this is exactly what happened to his Liverpool—an English team of the 80s—that when they were declining they still won the championship in 1990 and that was the end of it. But I think United are not a diminishing force. The team is simply going through a rough season. It is a hell of mountain to climb when you lose a main defender and then have so many injuries at a time when the league and other competitions have reached a critical stage. It is also a question of fate. In the Porto game for example, the second goal by Paul Scholes should have stood. It was not offside because there were three Porto players onside. United also have the luxury of wallowing in money—not like Chelsea—but they still have it. They can splash it to buy the tried and tested stars who can give back the team what it deserves—glory. It is not over for United, I dare say.
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