TNM has made a dramatic reversal of its decision to withdraw Super League sponsorship, much to the relief of the domestic football fraternity.
TNM’s comeback paves way for the kick off of the 2017 season, which was initially scheduled for this weekend, only to be thrown into uncertainty.
TNM Chief Executive Officer, Douglas Stevenson and Minister of Labour, Youth, Sports and Manpower Development, Henry Mussa, confirmed the development through a joint statement which they released yesterday.
“We are also grateful to CFTC [the Competitions and Fair Trading Commission] board and their parent, Ministry of Industry and Trade, for their subsequent and clearer interpretation of their decision that the current agreement/contract be maintained until the year 2020, enough transitional period to allow the Malawi National Council of Sports and other stakeholders time to come up with a comprehensive roadmap and rules and regulations to govern the future contracts/ agreement reasonable to all competing sports,” Stevenson and Mussa said in the statement.
In reaction, Super League of Malawi General Secretary, Williams Banda, yesterday said they were relieved with TNM’s u-turn.
“It is good news. It is a great surprise and when we heard it, we could not believe it. TNM has indeed live up to its motto that they will always be with us,” Banda explained.
“Minus the sponsorship, we had nowhere to start from. My message to the teams is that they need to be careful with their utterances which can hurt sponsorship.”
TNM pulled out a fortnight ago in reaction to the commission’s order that the mobile phone service provider should revise a clause in its contract with Sulom, restricting rival companies from domestic elite football sponsorship.
TNM was unhappy with the manner in which the commission’s determination found its way to the press before the company was briefed.
It transpired that some unknown party plus Beta Television complained to the commission over the restrictive clause.
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