It was befitting that Football Association of Malawi (Fam) gave its former president late John Zingale a decent send off last week because the man made a huge difference to the country\u2019s football.<\/p>\n
He was the sponsor of the now defunct Southern Region Football League side, Gola United, which he named after a hill in his village homestead of Chapananga in Chikwawa District. Zingale later became chairman of the league itself.<\/p>\n
He eventually became president of Fam and during his tenure he managed to secure from Fifa the Goal Project, the football development initiative which the world governing body offers to developing countries.<\/p>\n
This is an initiative by outgoing Fifa president Sepp Blatter to try and make football develop in Africa and this is what has won him to stay in power through votes from Africa and South America.<\/p>\n
Zingale managed to convince Blatter to visit Malawi during a Fifa presidential campaign trail where the Swiss laid a foundation stone for the Goal Project I at Chiwembe.<\/p>\n
Today, Chiwembe Technical and Development Centre stands imposing in that township, whose foundation was laid by Zingale and carried over by incumbent Walter Nyamilandu.<\/p>\n
There are two sports personalities that come to the fore as the fruits of Zingale – Big Bullets James Chilapondwa and Fam\u2019s chief executive officer Suzgo Nyirenda – they both played for Gola United.<\/p>\n
While Chilapondwa is still playing football, having had a stint with Tanzanian side Young Africans and Escom United, Nyirenda is a respected football administrator, not just in Malawi but at Confederation of African Football (Caf) as well as at Cosafa.<\/p>\n
The Goal Project initiative is now in its fifth stage, this time planted in Mzuzu to try and nurture talent for the good of the country\u2019s football.<\/p>\n
Though Fifa aimed at assisting developing countries, it was not going to be handed on a silver platter because national associations were supposed to present attractive proposals to earn consideration and that\u2019s what Zingale and his team managed to do.<\/p>\n
The other phases have been completed by Nyamilandu, who is seeking another term and I think he deserves to be given that opportunity because I don\u2019t get any inspiration from the long list of aspirants vying for the post-Chikwawa United owner and sponsor Owen Chomanika, banker Wilkins Mijiga, Blantyre Sports Club golf captain John Gift Mwakhwawa, politician Humphrey Mvula, Allie Mwachande and former goalkeeper Boniface Maganga.<\/p>\n
Probably sensing an imminent defeat, Silver Strikers board chairman, Kelvin M\u2019mangisa, has withdrawn from the race. M\u2019mangisa lost to Nyamilandu some 12 years ago.<\/p>\n
Most of the aspirants are not telling us the difference they will make to develop football further than what Nyamilandu has done including regaining confidence from the corporate world, which gave up on football following recurring violence.<\/p>\n
Instead, they are just busy saying Nyamilandu has overstayed. Yes, he\u2019s been there for a while but the aspirants should dangle the carrot that can convince the voters to aim for a new broom.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, Nyamilandu inherited a good legacy set by Zingale and went on to win four more phases from Fifa and if we nurture him more, he is the likely candidate for the consideration of the post of Caf presidency.<\/p>\n
I deeply thank Nyamilandu and his team for giving Zingale the honour he deserved as a former president after his fellows in political circles had abandoned him during his illness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was befitting that Football Association of Malawi (Fam) gave its former president late John Zingale a decent send off last week because the man made a huge difference to the country\u2019s football. He was the sponsor of the now defunct Southern Region Football League side, Gola United, which he named after a hill in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7297","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\/7297","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=7297"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7301,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7297\/revisions\/7301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}