FPA optimistic despite challenges
Football Players Association (FPA) has admitted that it is facing hitches to register every Super League player.
However, FPA’s General Secretary Ernest Mangani, remained hopeful that the body will soon achieve its goals having being struggling since the body’s inception four years ago.
“We have managed to register about 80 players. We put the blame on the institutions that ran football in this country,” he said.
Mangani said FPA had put in place a system to outline its existence.
“For the past four years, we put the constitution in place and we have also been able to register with the government and also the world football players mother body FIFPRO in Zurich. To us this is quite a big achievement but not good enough to measure our success against problems the players are facing in the country,” he said.
Mangani said following the setback, FPA was concerned with the welfare of local players.
“We have failed to put the players on good health services like Masm. We have also failed to end the contractual disputes between clubs and some players especially those who are not our members but all is not lost,” he said.
Mangani blamed players and clubs of failure to join association saying it was a recipe disputes.
“Until a time when all Super League players shall see the need to join our body these problems will continue. We have secured good deals with an unnamed insurance firm where these players will contribute through their clubs an annual subscription fee of K150,000 to enjoy good services,” he said.
According to Mangani, Nyasa Big Bullets and Silver Strikers were some of the teams who were good at welfare of their players.
FPA started in 2016 with an aim of overseeing the welfare of both active and retired football players.
Football Association of Malawi (Fam) reportedly told FPA that registration of the players with the body was not mandatory.
Recently, there been transfer wrangles between players and clubs. Two Silver players Mike Mtonyo and Lazarous Deco Nyemera have taken the club to court demanding notice pay amounting to K5.1 million.
Another case involves midfielder Vitumbiko Kumwenda who resigned from Blue Eagles with six months left on his contract in his quest to force a move to Be Forward Wanderers.
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