The 2017 Volleyball Association of Malawi (Vam) National Championship ended in controversy as Kamuzu Barracks (KB) walked out of court during the final match in protest over a referee\u2019s decision at Lilongwe Community Ground on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The deposed champions protested after referee Khuma Kauwa gave KB player Crossbey Makondetsa marching orders for suspected foul language.<\/p>\n
In reaction, the soldiers walked out of court and boycotted the prize presentation ceremony.<\/p>\n
The final had started late as KB had reservations with the referee.<\/p>\n
The two teams were tied at 1-1 after two sets when the abandonment occurred.<\/p>\n
Vam reversed the decision several times before declaring Thunder champions.<\/p>\n
Vam Vice President, James Kaunda, said despite several flaws, the tournament achieved its purpose.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will wait for a report from the organising committee to decide on the issue of KB. But the tournament was a success because we identified good players,\u201d Kaunda said.<\/p>\n
KB officials refused to comment on the issue.<\/p>\n
Thunder Coach, James Mangani, said they deserved the championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a well contested final but KB were under pressure from us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Thunder were declared 3-1 winners over KB to be crowned champions and pocket K400, 000, plus a trophy and gold medals.<\/p>\n
KB received K250, 000 plus medals. Junior Spikers of Lilongwe finished on third position after beating Moyale Barracks 3-2 in a third-place play-off.<\/p>\n
Ken Kansasi (Thunder) was named most valuable player (MVP) as well as best spiker.<\/p>\n
Best setter was Mangani whereas Jones Mapira of KB was the best receiver.<\/p>\n
Nick Liwewe of Moyale won the best blocker accolade.<\/p>\n
In the women\u2019s category, Blue Eagles defended the title after defeating KB 3-2 whereas Moyale beat Snipers by the same margin in a third place play-off.<\/p>\n
MVP was Raxanne Corbeil from Eagles, Pauline Bwande and Fannie Kanyenda (both KB) won the best receiver and setter awards, respectively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 2017 Volleyball Association of Malawi (Vam) National Championship ended in controversy as Kamuzu Barracks (KB) walked out of court during the final match in protest over a referee\u2019s decision at Lilongwe Community Ground on Sunday. The deposed champions protested after referee Khuma Kauwa gave KB player Crossbey Makondetsa marching orders for suspected foul language. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":49610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49605","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\/49605","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=49605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49612,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49605\/revisions\/49612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}