The future of Mzuzu University Football Club is in limbo following a decision by the University to stop funding the club with immediate effect.
This comes barely weeks after the management rejected an offer of K140 million sponsorship package from Central Health Medical Aid (CHMA).
According to one of Malawi’s daily papers, The Nation newspaper, the management will no longer fund the club’s participation in competitive football due to financial difficulties.
The paper has reported that the management, through the university registrar, has notified all the key stakeholders, including Mzuzu University Student Representative Council (Musrec), students and the club’s General Secretary.
“For your information, the university is in arrears leading to a huge deficit which has led to cutting of expenditure in a number of activities, including Mzuni FC.
“Please note that the university will only provide financial support to Mzuni FC as part of extracurricular activities for students,” reads part of the Memo.
It has also been reported that the decision follows up to an earlier resolution which was made by the university’s council during a meeting held in November last year to stop funding the team’s non-student players and that the club should cease to operate on commercial basis.
The team’s General Secretary Donnex Chilongo confirmed the upshot with the paper, saying the executive did everything possible to save the situation but to no avail.
“At first, it was to do with non-student players only but what the latest development means is that the team should not play at competitive level and if anything, it will only be involved in inter-college activities.”
“We have tried on our part to no avail. So, our position is that we have accepted, but we have left the matter to the students for their perusal since they are the owners of the team,” he was quoted by the Nation newspaper.
The team is expected to play Civil Sporting Club in the quarterfinals of the Airtel Top 8 Cup but this latest development puts much doubt on the team’s participation.
If it happens that Mzuni pulls out of the top flight football, Super League of Malawi (Sulom) will either maintain Red Lions or conduct play offs between last season’s relegated teams.
