Malawi National Women’s Football Team has been dealt a blow following Football Association of Malawi’s (FAM) decision that the Scorchers should opt out of the 2024 Olympics women’s football qualifiers due to lack of funds.

The draw for the qualifiers is scheduled for next Tuesday in Cairo, Egypt, but the Scorchers are conspicuously missing on the list of the teams that will be in the pot for the draw.

In an interview yesterday, FAM president Walter Nyamilandu said the association does not have funds for the team to participate in the qualifiers expected to kick off in July to identify two teams that will represent Africa at next year’s Summer Olympic Games scheduled in Paris, France.

He said: “Unfortunately, Malawi is not participating in the Olympics women’s football qualifiers due to lack of funds.”

FAM received a K10 million grant from Malawi Olympic Committee (MOC) for preparations ahead of the qualifiers.

However, Nyamilandu said the grant was not enough to take the team through the qualifiers which will be played over four rounds.

The Scorchers celebrating a win at last year’s Cosafa tournament in South Africa

The first round will be played from July 10 to 18 2023 while the second round will follow from October 23 to 31 October 2023.

The third round is scheduled for February 19 to 28 2024 while the fourth will be played from April 1 to 9 2024.

Nyamilandu said participating in the tournament would have left the association in debt.

He said: “As much as we appreciated the kind gesture by MOC, it’s a pity that the K10 million was not even sufficient for a training camp to prepare for the Olympic tournament. We would have been left with a huge debt.”

On what will happen to the grant Nyamilandu said: “We will discuss with MOC on how best to utilise the funds towards women’s football development.”

MOC offered the Scorchers the grant after they narrowly missed it in the last qualifiers for the 2020 Tokyo edition.

Malawi beat Mozambique 14-1 on aggregate over two legs in the first round before being booted out by Kenya in the second round on 5-3 aggregate defeat.

MOC general secretary John Kaputa asked for more time before commenting on whether they will allow FAM to use the grant for other women’s football programmes.

Reacting to the development in an interview yesterday, Scorchers’ Italy-based captain Tabitha Chawinga described it as unfortunate.

She said: “It’s a pity that we’ll miss out on such a big tournament which would have provided the local-based players with a chance for exposure.

“It’s through competing in such tournaments that the team can improve and players can also have a chance to be spotted by established foreign clubs.”

The post  Olympics blow for scorchers first appeared on The Nation Online.