FDH Bank Plc has increased the sponsorship package of the FDH Bank Cup from MK120 million to MK150 Million..
The Ban’s Senior Manager Marketing and Communication Ronald Chimchere announced on Monday during the 2023 FDH Bank Cup prize presentation ceremony at Amaryllis Hotel in Blantyre.
Chimhere said the bank is committed to football development in Malawi hence revising the package at the start of each season in the last three seasons.
“As we are committed to developing football in Malawi, and this will be the fourth season that we will be sponsoring the FDH Bank Cup. Initially, we signed a five-year contract and would want to fulfil our promise. If you may also recall, the first season was at MK90 million, and looking at the economic environment, we saw it wise to push the amount to K120 million before this new package of K150 million.
He further expressed joy at how the 2023 season unfolded.
“The main highlight for the 2023 season was FCB Nyasa Big Bullets becoming the first team to defend the title.But also when you look at other aspects, it was quite an exciting season where we have seen a quite number of players coming up and one of them is the Discovery of the Tournament from Santhe Admarc.
“It was quite exciting for us because as a bank sponsoring this cup, what we want is to unearth talent at all levels so we are happy with what has happened so far and we are looking forward to the new season,” he said.
Football Association of Malawi (FAM) Chairperson for the Competitions Committee Felister Dossi said the association is excited with the latest development.
” We had discussions with all our sponsors when the year was just starting and one of them was FDH Bank to map the way forward for 2024 and one of the issues we discussed was the increase of sponsorship so today we are excited and delighted that they have considered our proposal and have increased the sponsorship with an extra K30 million,” she explained.
She added that the new package is in line with FAM’s vision of commercialising the game so that the sponsors should also gain value from football.
“As FAM, this is one of the pillars that we are driving at as we need to give value to the sponsors. There is an issue of devaluation and when you look at the money that was pumped into football years back, you cannot compare the value now so I think as one way of commercialising the game, we said if the money is increased, we could see a lot of competition, a lot of fans coming to patronise the games and bilud numbers fo value,” she added.
Dossi then reassured the football fraternity that FAM is reviewing Mpira TV to make clubs realise more money from TV rights.
During the event, FDH Bank and FAM rewarded players for their outstanding performances in the 2023 season.
Bullet’s Patrick Mwaungulu was named Player of the Tournament while his teammate Hassan Kajoke won the golden boot award having scored four goals in the 2023 season.
Mighty Mukuru Wanderers goalkeeper William Thole won the Golden Glove award and the discovery of the season award went to Santhe Admarc goalkeeper Zahaya Malithano.
In the Media Awards, Mibawa’s Hankey Chimtengo won the best TV Journalist, Richard Tiyesi from Timveni Radio won the Best Radio Journalist while NPL’s Bobby Kabango won the Best Print Journalist award. Chifundo Zingunde from Aluso Media was named Best Photojournalist while Andrew Cane Chilapondwa from malawi24 was awarded as the best online journalist. Victor Musongole, Isaac Grant and Moses Byson were named best community radio journalists for the north, central and southern regions respectively.
