FMB Under-20 Youth Football League sponsors, FMB, have emphasized on the need for football authorities to encourage young footballers to pursue education and safeguard their future.
The bank’s head of marketing, Sylvia Mataka, made the sentiments on Wednesday in the build-up to this season’s national finals scheduled for tomorrow at Zomba Community Centre.
Mataka said, as sponsors, it was their main objective to see young footballers excel in football and education.
“I appeal to all football stakeholders involved in this league to ensure that they should check on the progress of their players in education. We want to produce quality players, but they must also have other options in life. We will be happy to see our players become reliable citizens in the future,” she said.
Mataka added that FMB was proud to produce players that are currently in the senior national team set-up.
“In the future, we want the national team to have players that came from FMB league only. We will be very happy if we achieved that,” she said.
Some of the current national team players that were discovered through the FMB league are Isaac Kaliati, Levison Maganizo, Gerald Phiri Jnr, Chawanangwa Kawonga, Dalitso Sailesi, Brighton Munthali and Miracle Gabeya.
National Youth Football Association (NYFA) chairperson, Mabvuto Missi, said his committee has measures to encourage players to embrace education.
“We always monitor the progress of the players in their schools. We also encourage the clubs to discipline players that abscond classes. We also deliberately schedule the matches in line with the school calendar so that we should give the kids an opportunity to go to school,” he said.
The national finals kick-off is today with defending champions Fish Eagles facing Dedza Police Youth in the first semi-final. Mangochi Police Reserve meet Disciples FC in the other semi-final.
Winners from the two semifinals will meet in the final match tomorrow where K750,000 is up for grabs.
The national champions would receive an extra K300,000 for doing well at the district level and a K300,000-worth set of uniforms.
The runners-up would get K500,000, a set of uniforms and K300,000 district prize money.
Player of the tournament and top scorer would each get K50,000.
This year’s competition included three new districts to take the tally of participating districts to nine.
The new districts are Mchinji, Mangochi and Karonga.
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