Malawi National Council of Sports (MNCS) has released nominees for the 2024 Malawi Sport Awards slated for Sunbird Nkopola Lodge in Mangochi on February 28.
During a press briefing at Amaryllis Hotel in Blantyre, council announced the start of the voting process which will see the public contributing 30 percent of the votes.
A panel of judges comprising banker and Ulaya Classics founder Charles Ulaya and veteran journalist Gracian Tukula highlighted the criteria which was to shortlist the final three nominees.
Ulaya, who is also a member of the adjudication committee, said one of the challenges they faced was failure to understand that participating in a tournament without winning medals would not make an association qualify for nomination.
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“Some associations only participated in various tournaments which alone would not make them win but we wanted those who won medals. We also considered the qualifying times for athletes if at all they improved from their previous qualifying times,” Ulaya said.
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On his part, Tukula, who is one of the judges handling media category, also highlighted the issue of journalists nominating themselves as one of the challenges.
“Some sports associations nominated the journalist on the basis that they covered their events even if the work submitted by the particular journalist was substandard. These were some of the changes we encountered,” he said.
Meanwhile, MNCS Director of Planning, Marketing and Infrastructure Development Limbani Matola said they were satisfied with the process used by the judges to determine sports personalities and associations of the year.
“This year we had an overwhelming response from the nominees. We had the nomination stage then nomination and adjudication committee and then what remains is the public to vote.
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“We have a tailor-made portal which is awards.malawisport.mw either through Airtel or TNM. The public may wish to know that this is a merit based process whose vote is 30 percent and the judges have 70 percent,” Matola said.
