The Football Association of Malawi has taken over the sponsorship of Regional Division One Leagues and has now renamed it Mpira TV Regional Division One Leagues.

This follows the discontinuation of the leagues’ sponsorship by Standard Bank PLC.

The Bank notified FAM that it will not be able to renew the Unayo Regional League annual sponsorship as a result of its recent product review of Unayo’s business priorities and strategies.

FAM General Secretary Alfred Gunda said the Assocation has decided to step in and support the Leagues to ensure continuity in its League and player development pathway.

Gunda said FAM will maintain the sponsorship package of K15 million per Region and the funds are coming from the newly introduced K75 million special grant subvention to the Regional Associations for supporting competitions and professionalization.

“The bank notified us about their decision last month and we understood their situation. We had a three year partnership renewable annually. So it will not be renewed this year.

“We treasure the support the bank gave football and would like to thank Standard Bank for making a bold decision of becoming the first ever sponsor of the Division One leagues national wide. Considering that the reasons given are not football related we have hope that they will be able to return in future.

‘Going forward, the Division 1 Regional Leagues have grown into big and popular brands across the country and FAM remains open to explore collaborations with other potential partners,” said Gunda.

On the FAM Sponsorship Gunda said: “ Initially the grants funds were ear -marked for other competitions related activities but we aligned with the Regional Associations to re-allocate the K15 million to the Leagues to ensure that there is no gap in the Regional Competitions.