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It doesn’t rain but it pours for Bakili Bullets. Southern Region Football League (SRFL), owners of the country’s once football mecca—BAT Ground, are on Bakili Bullets’ throat. The regional league has given the people’s team up to Tuesday to pay K70,000 ($648) ground rentals or risk being barred from training at the famous arena.
SRFL vice general secretary Mussa Ching’amba said the Bullets have not been paying K2,000 daily ground rental since resuming training in December last year.
“We understand that they are currently struggling financially but we expected them to make at least a part payment from the K2 million they got as transfer fees for Emmanuel Chipatala and Dick Malidadi from Silver Strikers.
“But we never got anything and it is a clear indication that they do not appreciate. We always have problems in getting payment from Bullets and we will give them up to Tuesday next week to pay us, failing which we will not allow them to train there,” said Ching’amba.
The SRFL spokesman also said the people’s team has trained for 27 days translating to K54,000.
“In addition to that, they have a K6,000 balance from last season and recently they booked the ground twice for their supporters elections.
“Unfortunately the K10,000 cheque which was issued by the club was referred to drawer by National Bank of Malawi, Zomba Branch,” narrated Ching’amba.
He added that the most unfortunate part of it all is that whenever they remind the club about the long-standing balance, supporters tend to threaten the ground authorities.
Bullets’ chair Hassam Jussab admitted in a separate interview that his team has not been paying the grounds rentals but he attributed the situation to lack of funds.
“As I have been saying, the biggest problem that we have now is funding because we have not yet received sponsorship from our sponsor [Bakili Muluzi]. The money we got from Silver was used to pay players’ dues.
“But should we get anything in due course we will definitely sort SRFL out,” said the Bullets boss.
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