MALAWI FOOTBALL CHALLENGE CUPS, A MERE CHEAT TO MINORS

Be forward wanderers players celebrate FISD victory

I greet you all SPORTS fans and my audience in the festive month of December as we look to wind up the year. Congratulations to Mighty Be Forward Wanderers for extending history of being winners of every inaugural cup in Malawi having pocketed the adored FISD challenge Cup.  Congratulations to Malawi Netball Team for triumphing at the fast five series. Condolence to Malawi Under 20 National Football team for being embarrassed at the Cosafa Junior tourney in South Africa with no win and no goal. “No topsoy theory in sports” article is awaiting you.

Malawi having missed out on the Olympics medal lists, Paralympics medal list, women under-17 world cup and men world cup qualifiers earlier in the year, I find my writings being relegated to local tournaments only. Nevertheless, I can urge my audience to pluck a leaf from these international tourneys.

Well, in Malawi like many other sporting or just sports admiring countries, the case of Malawi, cherish running Challenge Cups. Normally these are competitions with a distinct format and take a somewhat different view. Challenge cups mostly fall inside a league season or sometimes during off-season of their major league. Contrary to a league setting which uses point accumulation, challenge cups take a route of few days or weeks before the winner can be crowned the supremacy. Another characteristic of a challenge cup is that the mode of qualification is largely by way of knock-out. In other countries, the knock-out phase is reached after the teams have battled it out for points in the preliminary group phase.

Very common, even elsewhere, challenge cups feature super league teams and lower league outfits to compete for the piece. Sometimes the lower league teams are seeded against major league teams. In other instances such as former challenge cup- standard bank trophy, some super league teams were exempted from the first line of elimination; only to join the group in the quarterfinals.  

What has sparked this debate is the recent inaugural FISD challenge cup. When the news broke that there would be such a trophy in the country to substitute the withdrawn standard bank challenge cup, I quickly mimed in myself that perhaps the Irrigation based Agribusiness technocrats would bring a pure fair-competition format. By pure format I mean an arrangement that considers leveling the ground for all participating teams. I mean the structure that would consider differences of teams’ statuses among others. The author has therefore taken the risk to ignore criticisms that would emanate from this article to still question the challenge cups in Malawi.

a malawian lower league team; 

Firstly the author would like to express a total appreciation to the FISD Company for giving the soccer loving Malawians an opportunity to enjoy the shortest but superb football competition in 2016. Coincidently, it has run at a time the competition in the major league, Tnm Super league is tight and quiet appetizing than perhaps the last two seasons.

Unbelievable up to now nobody can predict who would grab the Pompo-pompo kutenga 3 points competition; even with just less than four games to wind up the season. Towards the end of the FISD competition, Malawi has embraced a promising agricultural favorable rain pattern with many parts of the country reported to have sowed. Well, it is tempting to think FISD is a blessed company with innate elements that also bless everything it mentions.

Organization of the competition also proved to have been a five-star standard.  It is very human to award respect where it is due. ‘Mr Charles grandmaster Nyirenda, Mr Phiri from FISD and his team, Football Association competition committee with Gomezgani Zakazaka, but also The Malawi vice President Dr  Saulos Chilima for gracing the finals; here are your congratulatory flowers’.

FISD challenge Cup has not only given out the most scarce bumper money to the winning team. The competition has aroused appetite of the non-league teams to scale up their efforts for possible inclusion in the subsequent edition. This means people in the remote areas are now likely to watch good football as the teams would be up on their feet to produce good performance.

This particular summer cup has helped to improve the grass-root football. There were regional phases where people managed to appreciate the fireworks of Dululu Fc, Mwanza Madrid, Nsanama Fc, lake Valley, Tiuni Fc, Zolozolo Fc just to mention some.  These small teams managed to stage up a grand fight in the national phase, although their arm could not reach to the height of this most precious crown. …Oops how could the author forget to mention Mangochi Police Fc and Prison United on the list?

Some of these teams reached the quarter finals and semis only to be sent packing. The best performance these teams got against super league teams was a narrow one-nil margin loss. And sports analysts, fans and organizers applaud them anyway. What everybody had missed is the fact that all these teams were dreaming to win the inaugural title than that round of applause for losing with just a goal against big teams. I think they still had questions in them such as ‘what would we benefit if people applause us of putting up a grand fight but miss out on the glory to shake hands with the Vice president’.  Therefore expectedly their primary purpose of participating was to hung the trophy in the air on the day of finals; which to me were just ‘,maloto a chumba’. 

To hit the snakes’ head, I mean there is no team from a lower league or non-league which has ever won such football challenge cups in Malawi in the recent records from the year 2000. Only Zomba United managed to date Bullets FC in the Finals of a cup and only to be soaked by a three goal defeat.

There are a few issues which the cup organizers and the entire people perhaps over look on these competitions. The idea of a competition is somewhat diluted.  Take a recess and think of the reasons why there is Olympics and Paralympics.

Perhaps that’s too broad, but even the reasons why do amputees compete among themselves. Surely the organizers knew Hussen Bolt would be dominating them in the race. He could complete two laps before the runner up appear on the finishing line. Of course he already wins in his normal category but after a fierce competition from his opponents with more similar physical and biological characteristics.

The more purpose of a competition is to be fair by leveling the ground for all participating members. This is achieved by ensuring that all participating teams have equal advantage of winning. That is the very first reason doping is punishable in sports because it puts other members at a fitness advantage over their opponents. Even in business that the reason there is a Competition and Fair Trading Commission to regulate issues of unfairness in business practices.   

Pay attention my beloved fans the way these cups are organized it is more apparent that teams from lower leagues are disadvantaged and triggers the formidable aspect of unfair competition.  

Firstly it must be remembered that super league teams are the clubs which, during their time of playing in lower leagues, survived defeats, crushed fellow teams and collected maximum points for a whole season to deserve a promotion. This means, they were declared champions; equal to none in that league.

Secondly, when such a team gets promoted to a major league it tries everything possible to acquire services of experienced players so as to withstand competition against the other teams. It is not a secret of how Max Bullets Fc in the Malawi Super League had struggled in the first round having relied entirely on its squad only. No wonder the team has anchored the bottom of the super league almost the whole season before it disbanded to enable the owner join Music industry with his ‘ndizayankhula album’. In the second round when the team pilled rejects from Mighty Be Forward Wanderers such as Brown Mizeyi and Abraham Kamwendo among others, the team proved to be a changed side in the subsequent fixtures. This has also applied to Premium Bet Wizards Fc.

Thirdly when this lower league team gets into the super league it is slowly becoming a norm to hire experienced coaches and tacticians. There is evidence of how Pofera Jegwe failed to withstand tactics of teams in the super league with his Dedza Saints Fc last season. Equally the same Max Bullets FC had to hire the services of Aubrey Nankhuni to enable promising lease of results before the surprise announcement of the team’s divorce. Otherwise with the current club licensing the super league coaches are supposed to have best CAF B license. In fact that could be the reason many sports analysts attributed the far-going of Mangochi police in Fisd Cup to presence of Commissioner Elija Kachikuwo who once was with Blue Eagles before his transfer to this police station on the tail of Lake Malawi.  

Fourthly, these super league teams have a somewhat large following as compared to the minors. As such during the games, the small teams have looked to be vulnerable to lack of confidence before a crowd and sometimes the supporters have taken the advantage to humiliate the minors and even abusing the voiceless players physically. Who has forgotten how a superb goalkeeper of the voiceless Mangochi Police Fc suffered traumatizing abuse at the Kamuzu Stadium during semifinals with Mighty Be forward when the game was goalless at half time?  And the disadvantaged Prison United at Balaka stadium where teargas was fumed out following fracas with the same Mighty Be Forward? The common characteristic of these both incidences is that the minor teams went on to lose the game. This totally admits impact of the supporters conduct.

All these and some other factors put the teams from lower leagues at disadvantage. They just escort the big teams to the crowing of the trophy. It is even a worst experience for the teams because they face against all these factors in what people describe as a competition which ought to be fair and considerate of all these factors.  

The bottom line is that let the teams of equal status compete for trophies! Don’t mix teams from two different sections because they have different levels of fitness, different levels of capabilities, wide disparity in support, and unequal voice in decisions to mention a few.  Instead let the winning teams from the regions compete among themselves in the finals. FMB under-20 trophy is the true reflection of what a fair challenge cup was supposed to be organized and run. Organize trophy for super league teams only! Do you want to be reminded why Newcastle United cannot play in the Uefa Champions this season and the next? M-m-m-m I thought it is because the Benitez brothers were relegated from the ‘big teams’ league’.  

In the next edition, am expecting the FISD organizers to pluck these issues and paste them with their usual best organizing lines. But so far so good, FISD cup has been Feasible. 

  

But just in case nobody, apart from me, expresses discomfort on the challenge cup design then next time invite Nigeria women football team to participate and see if the Ogah ladies will not win the FISD, Bus ipite, intosport, FAMA, and the Tnm in a day. Ha ha ha ha leave alone my Abujah ladies they are resting with a strike for their perks after forcing a win against Cameroon to become 2016 Africa women football champions.   Fwuuuuu waku Nigeria I have been invited for a party together with Ryad Marhez; the 2016 BBC AFOY….