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Msambila gentleman
Fam vice president Steve Msambila is a true Malawian—a fine gentleman. He, together with Sameer Suleman, Raphael Humba and Peter Chavula were removed from Fam executive by Sports Council after they failed to submit MSCE or its equivalent as required by the association’s constitution. Msambila knew the truth all along that he had the certificate which got lost. But instead of feeding the media with crap or trying to be clever to get away with it, he kept quiet as he was making efforts to exonerate himself. He never said MSCE is not necessary to run football so that he could bulldoze himself back into Fam. He knew he had the truth as his best weapon and went to look for it. He never sought Fifa’s intervention to reinstate him at Fam. Neither did he seek the support of Fifa’s development officer for this region Ashfold Mamelodi. He simply went to Maneb and sought help on how to get another copy of his lost MSCE. Such are the people that must run football in the country. People who have respect for regulations and play by the rules.
Other sports too
Athletics Association of Malawi president Dunstain Mwaungulu has a point in advising the new Minister of Sports Phillip Bwanali to resist the trap of thinking that sports is synonymous with football or netball. Of course, Mwaungulu was also scathing on media that our back pages are always full of football stories written in rambling style in the process shutting out other sports—point taken, sir. But the minister, in fact the whole government, must not favour football. After all despite government pumping billions of kwachas into football over the years, it has proved to be a bad investment because what has been reaped is misery after misery with no tangible success in over 20 years. On the hand, Mwaungulu’s athletics is making headway, the latest good news being Malawi winning the Southern Africa Cross Country with 27 medals. With such success, Mwaungulu should be justified to say football and netball get undue attention. Worse still football is poorly run these days with allegations of embezzlement of funds being the order of the day.
Support BB
When Bakili Bullets will be taking to the turf today against SC Villa of Uganda at the giant Chichiri Stadium in the Caf Champions League, they will not be representing their fans only, but the whole country. It makes no sense therefore for some fans of MTL Wanderers, for example, to think in terms of local rivalry and support the visiting team in the name of the so-called ganyu. This is not ganyu but pure lack of patriotism. MTL supporters must learn from what Arsenal supporters did in Portugal when rival but fellow English team Manchester United was playing against Porto FC last week. The Arsenal supporters clad in their team’s colours forgot about the rivalry back home and supported fellow English team. This is what I call rational supporting and it is what I expect from MTL Wanderers fans this afternoon. No ganyu, please.
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