Football Association of Malawi (FAM) says most of its resources this year will be channelled towards technical development of the game from grassroots, through youth programmes, the regional leagues and the elite leagues for both men’s and women’s football.
Unveiling the association’s vision in the last year of the “Raising the Bar” manifesto yesterday at Mpira Village in Chiwembe, Blantyre, FAM President Walter Nyamilandu said in October 2022, the FAM Finance and Administration Committee in liaison with FAM management, kickstarted the process by scrutinising the development plans from different subcommittees, costing the plans and allocated resources.
He said: “The Committee then presented the draft budget plan to our Member Associations and FAM Executive during a Budget Consultative and Executive meetings respectively in December where revisions were made followed by a provisional approval of the budget pending official approval at the Annual General meeting later in the year.”
The new approach will see FAM investing K33 million in Talent Development Scheme (TDS), K80 million in Football for Schools.
FAM will also re-introduce the Under 14 District Leagues with a budget of K50 million, Under 16 District League at K50 million and Under 19 District League (in partnership with FCB) at K20 million.
National Youth Football Committee will get K10 million annual subvention while Women’s National Championship will get K50 million.
FAM has also pumped in K15 million for the introduction of the Under 14 Girls District Leagues and K50 million for the Under 16 Girls Regional Leagues.
Nyamilandu explained: “This will see an increase in our development programme budget from K169 million in 2022 to K328 million in 2023 ( 94% increase).
“The Talent Development Scheme (TDS) will ensure we identity potential Under 17 football talented players to be placed in three development centres (Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu) for nurturing and grooming.
“The Under 14, 16 and 19 Leagues will ensure we establish a sustainable defined player development pathway while the Football for Schools will make football more accessible to both boys and girls and bring more kids into the game.
“All this will ensure we start producing quality future players for National Teams. We will engage and build capacity of Player Scouting Volunteers at district level to ensure we have a structured way of identifying and nurturing talent.
“We will enhance our project to broaden our scouting of talent in the rural and urban areas by increasing the sponsorship for districts league from K60 million to K90 million (50% increase) which translate to K3 million per district from K2 million.”
As one way of fulfilling its Strategic Intentions of making the Elite League attractive which includes Empowering SULOM to Accelerate Professionalism of Malawi Football and Elite League Value Repositioning, FAM has introduced a K100 million sponsorship for the Super League.
This is in addition to the K34 million Medical Aid for football players which FAM already provides.
Nyamilandu said: “This money is over and above the League sponsorship. A Special Taskforce headed by First Vice President Justice Jabbar Alide with Chimango Munthali, Sulom President and the three Regional Associations Chairpersons as Members will come up with guidelines on how these funds should be distributed and accessed.
“Just like FAM accesses its funding from FIFA in a regulated manner, strict access control measures will be put in place for these funds so that the intended objective to develop the game is achieved.”
Projects Funding has been increased by 50% from USD 2 million to USD 3 million for the four-year period. FAM is also entitled to USD250,000 and USD 50,000 per annum for a period of four years covering National teams international travel costs and football equipment respectively.
Source: FAM
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