Amid security concerns in Mozambique, Malawi national football team coach, Ernest Mtawali, has taken the risk of travelling by road to Zimbabwe to spy on the Warriors during their warm-up against Uganda today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no option but to travel to Zimbabwe in a bid to revive our qualification campaign,\u201d said Mtawali, whose charges meet Zimbabwe next Saturday in a 2017 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) Group L qualifier.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it is a risk but it is worth taking because it is an issue of national interest. We have failed to travel to Botswana, therefore, spying on our counterparts is the only alternative left.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mtawali, who was expected to leave for Harare yesterday and return tomorrow, is trying to mitigate the effects of the Flames\u2019 failed friendly match in Botswana today.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur preparations haven\u2019t been perfect. All those things happening in the background can somehow affect the team. The only positive is that we will have a full squad to train, at least, for four days prior to the game. Previously, we have not been able to train like this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mtawali also revealed that Flames skipper, Limbikani Mzava, was doubtful for the match after picking up a hamstring injury.<\/p>\n
Football Association of Malawi (Fam) General Secretary, Suzgo Nyirenda, said they did not force Mtawali to travel by road.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs it become clear that we will not travel to Botswana, we called the coach to discuss on what we should do. He offered to travel to Zimbabwe to monitor the game,\u201d Nyirenda said.<\/p>\n
Mtawali knows that he has a mountain to climb next week against the Warriors who top the table with eight points from five games. The Flames anchor the table on two points.<\/p>\n
The trip to Botswana failed after government, through Malawi National Council of Sports, only released K17 million for the Zimbabwe game, leaving Fam with an impossible task of sourcing the additional K10 million for the friendly.<\/p>\n
A Botswana Football Association official, speaking on behalf of General Secretary, Kemoeng Kagiso, said yesterday from the association\u2019s office in Gaborone that it was unfortunate that the game flopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have cancelled their (Malawi) hotel booking. It is unfortunate, but they have explained that they wanted to travel by road and they were advised that some parts of Mozambique, where they wanted to pass through, are not safe,\u201d said the official who refused to give his identity.<\/p>\n
BFA also has its own problems. Despite disclosing that they will unveil a new kit for their Afcon match against Uganda next week, the association is struggling to pay its players.<\/p>\n
Kemoeng told an online publication that the association used to pay the players\u2019 allowances from sponsorship money, but Orange Botswana has since discontinued support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amid security concerns in Mozambique, Malawi national football team coach, Ernest Mtawali, has taken the risk of travelling by road to Zimbabwe to spy on the Warriors during their warm-up against Uganda today. \u201cI have no option but to travel to Zimbabwe in a bid to revive our qualification campaign,\u201d said Mtawali, whose charges meet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25202","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=25202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25205,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25202\/revisions\/25205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}