The Parliamentary Committee on Social and Community Affairs says it is impressed with FAM’s commitment towards transformation of football in the country.

The Committee’s Chairperson Honorable Savel Kafwafwa said this on Tuesday afternoon when his committee met FAM President Fleetwood Haiya and Senior Management at Mpira Village in Chiwembe.

Kafwafwa said his committee was concerned with the recent performance of the Malawi Senior Men’s national football team, the Flames, and wanted to understand what FAM is doing correct the situation.

“There is a new administration at FAM and though it has been almost a year, we had not met them. So, we wanted to get familiar with what they are doing to improve the game.

“We were concerned with the recent poor performance of the Malawi National Football Team and wanted to understand the reasons behind this.

“We have seen that as a new team they are doing their best and their vision to transform the game is on track. We have noted they do not get enough funding from government which is affecting  their operations so we are going to engage the responsible ministry and Malawi National Council of Sports to see how best we can resolve the situation.

“We are going back satisfied seeing the commitment from the leadership the to ensure that Malawi football is transformed and the Flames qualify for the 2027, Afcon finals,” he said.

In his remarks Haiya said the association is grateful for the committee’s visit saying it will help solve the problems affecting the game among them the national team performance if funding issues are addressed.

“We took advantage of the meeting  to highlight the challenges that we are facing. We have shared our concerns with the committee, one of which is the issue funding. The national teams belong to the government but do not get adequate financial support which we have asked to be addressed.

“As FAM, we give our maximum outputs within our limited resources. We have asked the committee to lobby for us to have a separate funding vote for the national teams in the national budget. This we believe will help us have enough resources and enable us to plan properly for our activities because we would know how much is allocated to us.

“After this meeting, we believe that that Committee is going to take  our concerns to the rightful authorities and we will see improved support which will enable the national team to start doing well,” he said.

After the meeting, the members had a tour of Mpira Village.