Football Association of Malawi (FAM) is squeezed and is banking on a K200 million loan to facilitate the national teams’ participation in the Cosafa Under-20 Championship and the Beach Soccer Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) finals this month.

FAM president Walter Nyamilandu yesterday said they have resorted to get  a bank loan as the last resort after exhausting their funds from the government and corporate sponsors FDH Bank plc.

He said the situation could have been worse if government had not bailed out the local football governing body with K282 million supplementary funding as a refund for expenses incurred in the Flames’ recent African Nations Championship (Chan) and Cosafa tournaments.

The Junior Flames will leave for e-Swatini, formerly Swaziland, tomorrow to compete in the Cosafa event, which will also act as the qualifiers for the TotalEnergies Africa Youth Championship while the Beach Soccer National Team will depart for Mozambique next week for the Beach Soccer Afcon finals between October 21 and 28.

Said Nyamilandu: “We are in a very critical situation as we have exhausted all our funding ahead of the two tournaments, which are very important. We are just keeping our fingers crossed that the loan application will be accepted. Otherwise, we will incur a lot of debts.

“We would also like to thank the Minister of Youth and Sports Hon.  Richard Chimwendo Banda for his personal intervention in ensuring that the Treasury rendered us support during this difficult period as without government’s supplementary funding, things could have been much worse for us.”

Meanwhile, the FAM president explained that the Beach Soccer National Team is camping on credit in Salima and is expected to travel to Mozambique by road as a cost-cutting measure, thanks to the acquisition of the K190 million state-of-the-art coach that FDH Bank has bought.

“Once we acquire the bank loan, 60 percent will go towards the Junior Flames expenses at Cosafa Championship while the rest will be used for the Beach Soccer team. As we speak, some services for the teams have been acquired on credit,” he said.

But Chimwendo Banda yesterday said while government is applauding FAM for taking an initiative to source more funds, it could have been better for the association to first consult the Malawi National Council of Sports before applying for a bank loan.

“We are happy that FAM appreciates support it gets from the government and the need for the corporate world to assist the national teams,” he said.

“However, there was a need for FAM to approach Sports Council first before applying for a loan because such could have prompted us to talk to the Treasury to come up with more additional funding. Government has an obligation to assist the national teams.”

In spite of that, the minister said government supports FAM’s efforts in looking for help for the national teams from the corporate world.

“It is also important to understand that government alone cannot do everything for the national teams and there is a need for the corporate world to also support our flag carriers,” Chimwendo Banda said.

Reacting to the minister’s observation, Nyamilandu said: “There could be a communication breakdown because all the revised budgets and necessary paperwork was submitted to Sports Council.

“We will follow up with Sports Council on what transpired to make good of our official request that was made with them.

“We appreciate the good gesture demonstrated by the minister and we look forward to the support of the ministry so that we can liquidate the loan.

Sports Council spokesperson Edgar Ntulumbwa said he needed more time to check if FAM submitted the request.

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