DD Sunshine, who are considered as the bastion of domestic women\u2019s club football, have fired five players for allegedly refusing to adapt to the Lilongwe team\u2019s new school-first policy.<\/p>\n
Under the new policy, only footballers willing to pursue secondary school education and above will be maintained, club owner, David Dube, confirmed on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Justifying the policy as being meant to enhance professionalism and empower the girls beyond football, Dube added that some players defied the pre-condition, hence he terminated their contracts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we are saying is that we have intensified the school programme. If one doesn\u2019t want to go to school, whether a star or not, we will terminate their contracts,\u201d Dube explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot keep someone who doesn\u2019t want school. People have to go to school because the club pays for them. If one does not want school, then they must go to their homes and stay, not here. We don\u2019t want to keep mbuli. I kicked five to six out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dube was elusive when asked about the identity of the fired players.<\/p>\n
He, however, hinted that most of the fired players were part of the Malawi women\u2019s squad that lost 2-0 to Tanzania during a warm-up played in Dar es Salaam last month.<\/p>\n
DD Sunshine contributed to the national team players such as Chimwemwe Madise, Temwa Chawinga, Madina Nguluwe, Fanny Mwale, Alice Msiska and Wezzie Mvula.<\/p>\n
The team\u2019s senior player, Alice Msiska, on Saturday threw her weight behind the new policy, which was agreed during a meeting in Lingadzi, Lilongwe.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am the best example because when I failed my Form Four, I repeated. Now, I am yet to pursue tertiary education, but I am an independent woman able to run my small-scale business.<\/p>\n
If someone does not go to school and understand English how do they play football in Europe?\u201d Msiska said.<\/p>\n
National Women\u2019s Football Association general secretary, Lina Mtegha, on Saturday reserved her comment on DD Sunshine\u2019s tough stance, saying she needed to get facts from Dube first.<\/p>\n
The team\u2019s striker, Temwa Chawinga\u2014a Form Two student at New Vision Private Secondary School in Lilongwe\u2014supported the school pre-condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are indeed some who feel theirs is just football, but football is a short-term career. What if they break a leg and the career ends? The policy is timely as some parents were uncomfortable to release their girls to play football fearing it could compromise education,\u201d said the younger sister to Tabitha.<\/p>\n
Last week, Chancellor College senior lecturer, Dr. Richard Nyirongo beamoned the absence of graduate football coaches, saying current footballers lack role models.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DD Sunshine, who are considered as the bastion of domestic women\u2019s club football, have fired five players for allegedly refusing to adapt to the Lilongwe team\u2019s new school-first policy. Under the new policy, only footballers willing to pursue secondary school education and above will be maintained, club owner, David Dube, confirmed on Saturday. Justifying the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15654\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}