Nomads’ coaching panel unpaid in 4 months

Tom Sangala December 26, 2017

680 1 minute read

While the Be Forward Wanderers’ family is basking in TNM Super League championship glory, behind the scenes, all is not well with the Yasin Osman-led coaching panel which has reportedly gone four months unpaid.
Sources confirmed that the panel, which includes assistant Coach Bob Mpinganjira, Team Manager Steve Madeira, Technical Director, Jack Chamangwana and Team Doctor, Sam Matukuta, was last paid salaries in August.
Reports of the coaches being unpaid have emerged when the blue side of town is celebrating winning their first league title in 11 years. Wanderers were crowned champions at Civo Stadium in Lilongwe on Sunday.
Sources added that the coaches have been surviving on borrowing and game-bonuses from the team, which is considered well-sponsored. The coaches are also reportedly owed game-bonuses for a month.
Japanese car dealers, Be Forward Limited, bankroll Wanderers. The actual sponsorship package remains a secret.
Osman, whose team wound up the season with unsurpassable 69 points from 30 games, following a 1-1 draw with Red Lions on Sunday, confirmed yesterday that his coaching panel has not been paid.
“Yes, it is true. We do not know how we are going to continue like this. We do not know what the future holds for us,” he said in a telephone interview from Lilongwe where the Nomads were to start off on a parade of the trophy heading to Blantyre.
The failure to pay the coaches is in breach of the two-year performance-based contracts they signed last February, with winning the league title as the target.
Wanderers Chairperson, Gift Mkandawire, yesterday candidly admitted that they were struggling to pay salaries for the coaches.
“But we are working on that. You have to understand that the money we get from the sponsors is specifically for the players, and other operational costs have been quite high.
“Most of the times, we depend on individuals and gate-collections but, in the past few months, we haven’t had high-profile games that have brought us enough money. The costs have been high, and that is why we have been crying that there is need to improve the formula [of sharing gate-collections],” Mkandawire said.
News of Wanderers struggling to pay their coaches come two months before the team, for the first time in 17 years, participates in the Confederation of African Football (Caf) Champions League after being drawn in the preliminary round against AS Vita of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mkandawire assured that they would look for alternative sources of income and venture into some income-generating activities.
Another Super League side, Masters Security FC, face Petro de Luanda of Angola in the preliminary round of Caf Confederations Cup in February. The Lilongwe rookies are also struggling financially.
Masters’ players shunned final league game they were supposed to play against Nyasa Big Bullets at Chilomoni Stadium in Blantyre on Saturday, in protest over unpaid dues, reportedly dating back to November.