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The new Football Association of Malawi (Fam) executive committee has come out of the shell, disclosing it has inherited huge problems from the previous team which is said to have left debts totalling about K13 million.
Executive member McCollins Chivunde and his acting boss Anderson Zimba made the disclosure this week when asked about the national football team’s preparedness for the 2006 World Cup and Nations Cup qualifying games which start in about five months time.
Four of the Flames’ opponents in the qualifying games—Morocco, Kenya, Egypt and Guinea— have been taking part in the Nations Cup finals in Tunisia while the Flames have been loafing with the football association yet to identify a coach.
But the two Fam officials said the executive was doing something about the situation.
“We are not sitting idle. The five of us, who are working agreed that we should recruit a local coach. But I should confess it has been difficult for us to operate. If we were a full house, we could have been moving fast.
“The other main problem is that we have inherited big problems from the previous regime. There are debts totalling K12 million and Sulom is insisting that we pay back K1 million from the K1.5 million meant for Bakili Muluzi Super League administration which was used at Fam. The debts are now coming to K13 million,” said Chivunde.
He added: “But there is really nothing in our account. It’s only overdrafts that are there”.
Chivunde said most of the debts were owed to institutions like hotels and car hire firms, a factor he said was making it difficult for Fam to call for international friendly matches involving the Flames.
“We will need the services from the same organisations if we invite a foreign team,” he said.
Former Fam treasurer Hubert Mfune refused to comment on the debts.
But Chivunde also disclosed that the new executive was failing to get hold of application forms for Fifa funding.
“Fam gets an annual grant from Fifa but we can’t trace the forms where we are supposed to indicate our programmes for this year. Forms for this year were distributed during the Fifa congress in South Africa where Fam was represented by Mr [Sameer] Suleman and [Hubert] Mfune. But we can’t trace the forms and we have requested for fresh ones,” said Chivunde.
On his part, Zimba said the new executive was in a fix saying “It’s only when we are bailed out of these problems that we can start operating properly.”
Regarding the coach, he said they had referred the issue to the Malawi Football Coaches Association (MFCA).
“Previously the coaches association was complaining that it was being sidelined in the recruiting process of national coaches. We have now told them to suggest names. Fam will scrutinise the list before coming up with the names of eligible candidates,” said Zimba.
The acting Fam boss said the MFCA was given up to today to suggest the names.
But MFCA’s publicity secretary John Kaputa expressed ignorance on the issue, referring this reporter to general secretary Peterkins Kayira who could not be reached on his phone.
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