Football Association of Malawi (Fam) has asked women’s football clubs in the country to look beyond challenges that the game is facing in order to break barriers that exist in the game.
Fam president Walter Nyamilandu said breaking such barriers will help further improve women’s football in Malawi.
Nyamilandu made the remarks at Fam’s Mpira Village in Blantyre on Tuesday during the closing ceremony of a day-long women’s football Club Licensing workshop.
Women’s football Club Licensing is one of the projects that Fam is running under the Fifa men’s Football Development Program with the aim of professionalising women’s football locally.
Nyamilandu said women’s football has great potential to develop faster and take Malawi to global heights if clubs start implementing Club Licensing.
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“This is my first time to be in the same room with women’s football clubs. Just being in this workshop is a strong indication that we don’t want to stay where we are today. We want to move forward.
“Professionalising women’s football is all about mindset change and challenging ourselves to do more and look beyond obstacles and prove that we are capable of making it. Female football administrators should not look down upon themselves but work hard to break barriers that have always been there,” he said.
Fifa Professional Football Development Advisor Jose Andres Portabella, who facilitated the workshop, said Club Licensing is a tool that is being implemented in all six confederations to raise standards of football clubs across the world.
“Club Licensing is developed with the football club in mind, so we needed to start this together by getting the reality of the situation at hand and designing possible ways of licensing our clubs,” Portabella said.
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National Women’s Football Association Chairperson Adelaide Migogo said the workshop was an eye opener for women’s football clubs in the country.
“Club Licensing will professionalize the game and bring clubs and Fam together. We will therefore ensure that all individuals running women’s football teams in the country are aligned with Club Licensing protocols,” Migogo said.
Speaking on behalf of the clubs, Ascent Academy’s Elina Mumba said the workshop has given them a different view on running their affairs.
“This has been a wonderful experience. We have learnt how we can handle our clubs professionally. We now appreciate the need for proper administration structures in our clubs. We are going to impart this knowledge to our colleagues who did not come to attend this workshop,” Mumba said.
The workshop brought together representatives from the 24 teams that participate in the Fam Women’s League.
