Football Association of Malawi (FAM) has come up with a K5 billion expenditure budget for the year 2023 for its operations.
During a press briefing on Thursday at Mpira Village in Chiwembe, Blantyre FAM president Walter Nyamilandu said effective this year the association will channel most of it resources towards technical development of the game from grassroots, youth programmes, regional leagues and the elite leagues for both men’s and women’s football.
“The committee presented the draft budget plan to our member associations and FAM executive during a Budget Consultative and Executive meetings in December where revisions were made followed by a provisional approval of the budget pending official approval at the annual general meeting later in the year,” he said.
The FAM president said FAM would invest K33 million in talent development scheme (TDS) and K80 million in football for schools.
FAM will also re-introduce the Under-14 District Leagues with a budget of K50 million, Under-16 District League at K50 million and Under-19 District League (in partnership with FCB) at K20 million. National Youth Football Committee will get K10 million annual subvention while Women’s National Championship will get K50 million.
FAM has also pumped in K15 million for the introduction of the Under 14 Girls District Leagues and K50 million for the Under 16 Girls Regional Leagues.
Nyamilandu explained: “This will see an increase in our development programme budget from K169 million in 2022 to K328 million in 2023 (94 percent increase).
“The Talent Development Scheme (TDS) will ensure we identity potential Under 17 football talented players to be placed in three development centres (Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu) for nurturing and grooming.
“The Under-14, 16 and 19 Leagues will ensure we establish a sustainable defined player development pathway while the Football for Schools will make football more accessible to both boys and girls and bring more kids into the game.
“All this will ensure, we start producing quality future players for National Teams. We will engage and build capacity of Player Scouting Volunteers at district level to ensure we have a structured way of identifying and nurturing talent.”
“We will enhance our project to broaden our scouting of talent in the rural and urban areas by increasing the sponsorship for districts league from K60 million to K90 million (50 percent increase) which translate to K3 million per district from K2 million.”
FAM is also entitled to $250,000 and $50,000 per annum for a period of four years covering National teams international travel costs and football
Meanwhile, the move has been welcomed, saying it is a game-changer.
Writing on Facebook, Levi Kanthu said: ” On paper, it really sounds so impressive. Implementation is the only problem”