The Football Association of Malawi’s Luwinga inclusive Football Academy will officially open its doors tomorrow Friday 13th December 2024 at the Association’s Luwinga Technical Centre in Mzuzu.
FAM President Fleetwood Haiya is expected to preside over the official launch.
About 27 boys and 15 girls who were scouted across the country were enrolled at academy and according to FAM Technical Director Benjamin Kumwenda the academy being the first of its kind in the country will be key in the country’s football development strategy.
“The academy will nurture talent for the next 2-3 years and we believe that this talent will play for our youth national teams and later on for the senior national teams”, said Kumwenda.
South African Talent Coach Thabo Senong was recruited by to lead the FIFA project and will be assisted by three local coaches namely Joseph Malizani, Robert Ng’ambi and Bridget Chirwa .
Senong will be in charge of training the players as well as further developing the local coaches to master expertise of managing the e academy within the two years of his contract .
Kumwenda further said that three will be expected to continue with the project when the time elapses for the FIFA talent coach.
“The Luwinga Football Academy is part of the football development of the nation and will attract new cohorts and in turn we will have better players for the national teams and football clubs as it will continue to graduate players as it is an ongoing project,” said Kumwenda.
All the players at the facility are enrolled at Wukani Education facility where they go for School aside from their football development.
Last weekend, Haiya unveiled FAM’s 2025 budget where over MK 500 million was projected to go to youth football development such as grassroots football and U-16 FAM boys and girls’ development.
