Malawi national soccer team’s failure to participate in Africa Nations Championship is not only worrisome but a total shame to a country that pretends to be keen to develop soccer.
This is a championship which was designed by Africa’s football governing body, Confederation of African Football, (Caf) to expose local based talents to international football.
Admittedly, Malawi has a poor track record as far as Chan competition is concerned. It has never gone beyond first round but at least the exposure of playing two or four games was enough to give our local based players a feel of Africa Nations Cup.
What is so scaring is that, Guinea, our next opponent in the Africa Nations Cup qualifier qualified for the semifinal of the tournament before they lost to DR Congo on post match penalties. That alone explains how tough the team is.
Guinea thrilled the fans with their free-flowing football and sublime skills displayed by their local players.
When our players were busy plaiting hair in the saloons and drinking beer in bottle stores and clubs, our opponents were busy displaying their skills in Rwanda.
It is sad that when our opponents are enjoying massive supports from their government, in Malawi everything is at standstill.
Nothing seem to work in a country that is reeling from dire poverty after the donors withdrew financial support because of the plunder of financial resources by a few greedy and unpatriotic individuals at Capital Hill popularly known as Cashgate.
However, that should not be used as an excuse for our failure to participate in high profile international competitions.
The problem is that when the Flames fail to register positive results next month, the coach Ernest Mtawali and his backroom staff will be blamed for shaming the nation.
We will all forget that our preparations ahead of the tie were shoddy.
Malawi is a country endowed with a lot of football talent, given sufficient resources like what the Guineans and Congolese have done to their players, it can easily move mountains.
It is a fact that this nation has been betrayed by its leaders, the people we entrusted to run our affairs, unfortunately have opted to become greedy.
When all the governments worldwide have opted to invest in soccer and sports in general, ours prefer investing our tax money in individual pockets and we foolishly believe in ourselves that Malawi sports can do the nation proud in terms of business, marketing and nation profile-building.
We are all camouflaging our failures in the guise of much-talked reforms.
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