Member of Parliament for Nkhatabay Central Symon Vuwa Kaunda who is also former Minister of Sports and Youth, says the Malawi National Football Team needs a local coach and not a foreign coach.
Rising on a point of order yesterday in Parliament, Kaunda said the team performed very well under local coaches like Meke Mwase and Kinnah Phiri.
According to Kaunda, it seems players had challenges in communicating with the current coach hence the need to have a local coach.
“We must and we should respect our own coaches.You may recall that when Meke Mwase was coaching the team, the team went to the African Cup of Nations and we performed very well under Meke Mwase and then Marinica came in and FAM removed Meke Mwase in favour of him and he has brought in what he calls new football philosophy and now the question is are our players able to adapt to the new philosophy?.
“The other question is the new coach that we have now, look at his profile, which other countries has he coached? Which clubs? Were those clubs of prominence?” asked Kaunda.
Kaunda also noted that there is need to allocate more resources to the national team following the protest by players before the game with Egypt as they were demanding their unpaid allowances.
According to Kaunda, this is a clear indication that Flames players are struggling and the money they get is not enough hence the need to increase funding to the national team.
On his part, Member of Parliament for Lilongwe South East, Baba Steven Malondera concurred with Kaunda saying the current coach needs to go and Malawi needs to find another local coach who can help the national team.
“What happened on Tuesday is embarrassing. So all I said is I think it’s time to change a few things. We have a coach but he is not doing what we expected and I think it’s time we let that guy go. He inherited a team from our own son Meke Mwase, it might not be Meke but can we find another local coach who can help us grow someone who can engage our players and understand each other using the local language. I think some of our players had challenges in communication or communicating with the coach. So my suggestion is can we take out this coach and find a local coach,” said Malondera.
Malawi has been performing poorly since the hiring of Mario Marinica and on Tuesday the Flames lost to Egypt 4-0 0at Bingu National Stadium.
Meanwhile, FAM has decided to let Marinica go at the expiry of his contract next month.
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