Football Association of Malawi (Fam) will no longer be recruiting expatriate coaches following the ever increasing number of qualified coaches in the country.
Fam President Walter Nyamilandu made the commitment at Mpira Village in Blantyre Wednesday during the opening ceremony of the Caf C coaching licence course.
Nyamilandu said Malawi now has coaches who are capable of producing results with national teams at different levels.
“Local coaches have now proved that they are ready. Look at what Kinnah Phiri did in 2010. He qualified us to the Afcon [Africa Cup of Nations] finals in Angola and then came Meck Mwase who did the same in 2020 and we went to Cameroon. Recently, Lovemore Fazili won us the Hollywoodbets Cosafa Women’s championship in South Africa.
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“We now have Patrick Mabedi who is equally doing well with the Flames. What we wanted by hiring foreign coaches was that these local coaches should learn from them. So now that we have trained many local coaches, it is time for them to do the job. The national team will always be coached by locals unless something happens,” he said.
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Nyamilandu then challenged the coaches to aim high by attaining top qualifications such as Caf A licence.
“I want to challenge you to aim higher and coach in the Super League and our national teams one day. Nobody is there forever. Go and demand formal contracts from your respective employers when you go out there and embrace modern ways of coaching. Go and start producing weekly training sessions after completing your course.
“I am happy today to see former players such as Steve Bakali, Allan Kamanga and Moses Chavula upgrading their qualifications. Let us all learn from them. James Sangala is another former player who did and you can also do it. We employed him here at Fam when he only had a Junior Certificate of Education but he is now pursuing a Masters’ Degree. So let us always aim high. It is never too late,” he said.
National Football Coaches Association Chairperson Aubrey Nankhuni hailed Fam for facilitating three Caf C courses within the year.
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“When I assumed office, I asked our technical director [Benjamin Kumwenda] to help us train more coaches and I am a proud man to have seen more coaches attaining qualifications. This is after we had gone eight years without conducting any training for our coaches to upgrade,” Nankhuni said.
Speaking on behalf of the coaches, MacDonald Kumwembe of Mafco asked Fam to consider subsiding their participation fees.
The course has 30 coaches drawn from across the country.
