This week I was depressed and annoyed to read names of local coaches who have expressed interest in replacing Ernest Mtawali as Flames coaches.
These people have availed themselves after Football Association of Malawi (Fam) refused to renew Mtawali’s one-year contract basing on the national team’s run of poor results.
Fam executive committee is expected to meet today to decide the future of Malawi football; whether to employ a local coach or an expatriate.
Obviously, if they arrive at the decision to employ a local coach, they will pick one from this list but I am praying that that should not happen.
The list comprises idle and recycled coaches whose brains have nothing to offer in as far as modern football is concerned. There is a wrong perception that if you were a great player then you can make a good coach. That combination only happens in rare circumstances.
Modern football demands certain attributes from a coach. Football has gone scientific and it has become a soul of this nation therefore, it requires sound education background.
After 52 years of self-rule, Malawians cannot afford to have secondary school drop-outs and street vendors at the helm of the Flames. These are names we can afford to abort in Malawi football.
Resorting to a foreign coach would be a better solution but there is only one problem I have had with foreign coaches, especially those from Europe. I strongly feel they have a wrong perception that Africa is full of primitive people whose thinking belongs to the Stone Age, forgetting that the continent has undergone rigorous transformation.
Fam executive committee should avoid committing these blunders when it comes to employing national team coaches.
Wounds are still festering when I recall the tenure of Stephen Constantine, the worst European mentor we have ever hired in recent times.
The coach arrogantly and shamelessly boasted to have coached India and Nepal national teams; countries that are synonymous with cricket.
As if that was not enough, they also employed that wayward German mentor, Burkhard Ziese, the late, whose wild touchline antics gave an impression that he was very passionate about the game but in reality he was a mere clown out to rip off our hard earned resources.
Then we had that Danish tactician, Kim Splidsboel, the coach who luckily survived because of sheer brilliance of a lone striker Esau Kanyenda. If indeed Kim was good, as some Malawians would want me to believe, then he could have secured a high-profile coaching job after leaving the Flames.
When they all came they promised us to watch a crisp passing game, quick movement of the players on the field of play and entertaining football, but they ended up destroying the flavour of our football.
Seriously, I have been left confused with this sheer madness.
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