{"id":62306,"date":"2018-03-15T10:18:23","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T08:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=62306"},"modified":"2018-03-15T10:18:23","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T08:18:23","slug":"fmb-pledges-u-20-league-expansion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2018\/03\/15\/fmb-pledges-u-20-league-expansion\/","title":{"rendered":"FMB pledges U-20 League expansion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>F<\/strong>irst Merchant Bank (FMB) has announced plans to extend its Under-20 Football League to all districts, following the success of the bank\u2019s current sponsorship.<\/p>\n<p>FMB Marketing Manager Widdey Nsona, who was accompanied by Regional Commercial Manager-South, Thenga Chipeta, announced the plans during a press briefing which the bank hosted at its headquarters in Blantyre in view of the league\u2019s scooping of Best Executed Programme Award on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>During the inaugural Malawi Sports Awards held in Lilongwe, Griffin Saenda Junior of Griffin Young Stars was named Coach of the Year while the team\u2019s player, Peter Banda, was voted Sportsman of the Year. Malawi under-17 national football, which is dominated by players from the league, was also named Best National Team.<\/p>\n<p>Nsona said they were not surprised that the league and its products dominated the awards.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are overwhelmed by the awards. It has been a wonderful journey for FMB; from [sponsoring] three districts to 12. Our vision is to be in every district as there is a lot of untapped talent. We are happy with the impact of the league on Malawi football. We increased sponsorship from K24 million to K30 million and we will continue to be committed. We are happy that out of 42 sports codes, we dominated the awards,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>National Youth Football Association Chairperson, Chimango Munthali, said they were growing together with the bank in developing football.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have many leagues in the country but to have our player [Peter Banda] called up for the senior national team\u2019s camp training speaks volumes of the quality of our league. Out of 18 players that won bronze at the Cosafa Under-17 Championship last year, 16 were from the FMB League,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Football Association of Malawi General Secretary, Alfred Gunda, said there was need to safeguard FMB\u2019s sponsorship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur goal is to ensure that the FMB brand is protected from the funny things that happen in football. Out of 42 registered sports codes under Malawi National Council of Sports, it is only us that have dominated [the awards]. We can only build on this strength to continuously go forward. Peter needs to stick to good behaviour and focus on the future. Let us encourage and promote such talent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First Merchant Bank (FMB) has announced plans to extend its Under-20 Football League to all districts, following the success of the bank\u2019s current sponsorship. FMB Marketing Manager Widdey Nsona, who was accompanied by Regional Commercial Manager-South, Thenga Chipeta, announced the plans during a press briefing which the bank hosted at its headquarters in Blantyre in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":62310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62306","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\/62306","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=62306"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62311,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62306\/revisions\/62311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}