The joke that is
Malawian football will never cease to astound me. The funniest part of our game
is in the boardroom where it is managed by a bunch of comedians who have never
achieved anything for the country. They are so clueless as to how much
investment is needed to uplifting the standards to match those of our friends
elsewhere.
What caught my attention
thus far is this TNM super league sponsorship where I hear that no other mobile
service provider is allowed to sponsor any super league team as long as the TNM
sponsorship contract is in effect. Seriously this is taking the football family
for granted; in fact whosoever was party to this nonsense brought us 10 plus
steps backwards regarding football development.
I hear the
Bullets failed to court other mobile service operators like Airtel simply
because TNM and Sulom plus FAM agreed on some contract like document that stops
other wanna be sponsors to come in as long as they are their competitors.
I also remember
Azam tigers this other season had struggled to have their jersey scribbled “Azam”
because of this sponsorship accord.
Picture this,
for years now we have been debating as to whether ours is an amateur league, a
semi professional or a professional league. I think now we have the answers; we
are nothing but an amateur league because everything about our football stopped
making sense long time ago.
All you hear
from these football jokers during cup prize presentation ceremonies is some applauding
to TNM for “working to uplifting the game of football in the country through
their sponsorship”. Geez! We are a sick nation indeed. This nonsensical sponsorship
can’t be applauded. Yes we are so desperate for sponsorship but we don’t need
to be jumping to all the tunes being plucked by these companies, besides where
is the corporate social responsibility.
Just take a look
at South Africa. The Premier Soccer League enjoys sponsorship from four
companies, MTN, Absa, Telkom, Nebank and as you can see, Telkom and MTN are
rivals in business. Apart from that, there are no restrictions in jersey
naming. Orlando Pirates and Kaizer chiefs put on Vodacom labelled jerseys but
are freely participating in the MTN8 wafwafa and the Telkom knockout donning
their Vodacom uniforms.
In fact, MTN sponsors
four clubs in the premiership: Ajax Cape Town, Bloemfontein Celtic, Golden
Arrows and Black Leopards.
Back home, with
this worthless contract between TNM and our super league how do you expect
companies to come in and sponsor our clubs? What will they benefit from such a
venture? They would opt out because they can’t have their company logos and
names on the jersey of the clubs in a company because of these useless
restrictions.
It’s high time
this contract is reviewed otherwise it doesn’t make sense to me.
TNM always not
with us…. Especially in football.