Frustrated with their poor performance in Malawi’s top flight Super League, Mighty Wanderers Football Club supporters have taken the law in their own hands and announced that the team’s executive committee has been dissolved.
Wanderers, who are sponsored by Japanese car dealers, Be Forward, are currently on position eight with very remote chances of picking up to fight for the top honour.
They have 32 points from 22 games with nine games left. They won a meagre eight games, drew eight and lost six.
They are nine points behind the leaders Silver Strikers, who have 41 points. On second place are defending champions Big Bullets with points from 22 games of 10 wins, 10 draws and two losses.
On third place are Blue Eagles with 39 points from 21 games, followed by Mafco on 38 points from 21 games on 4th place while Kamuzu Barracks are 5th with 37 points from 2 games.
Just last week, the executive committee, after losing 0-1 to their arch rivals Big Bullets at Kamuzu Stadium, fired head coach Eddingtone Ng’onamo and his assistant Eliah Kananji and replaced with former coach Yasin Osman as the head coach while club’s former top striker Bob Mpinganjira was appointed as deputy.
But Wanderers travelled to Lilongwe for their two league assignments in which they won 2-1 against 13th-placed Civo United before losing 1-2 to Kamuzu Barracks the following day.
Malawi teams play two away games on consecutive days — Saturday and Sunday — to cut on travel costs.
The letter dated 19 October, 2016 to the club’s executive committee, copied to the team’s board of trustees, says: “We write to inform you that we concerned supporters have dissolved your committee with immediate effect of the day of this letter.
“We have done this due to the poor performance of our beloved team and Mr Chimwemwe Chipungu is going to take care of the interim committee as a chairman which will be announced later.”
The letter has been signed by all of the club’s 22 sub committees based in Blantyre City.
The supporters have also gone on to barricade the team’s club house, to try to force the committee to pay the players their salaries.
One of the supporters, who declined to be mentioned, said they believe the players are not giving their best because they haven’t been paid their salaries for some months now.
Malawian club football structure is that it has no specific owners, especially the two teams — Wanderers and Bullets — who command the biggest fan base.
The supporters elect the executive committes. In the case of Wanderers, the elected executive committe is monitored by the board of trustees, who control the affairs of the club.
The executive committee is entrusted with the responsibility of hiring the technical committee, which in turn advices the executive on which players to hire.
Currently the team has three foreign players — Japanese Genki Nakamura, who who seems to have come because the team is sponsored by Be Forward, a car company from Japan.
The other players are Nigerians Fabiano Ozochukwu and Amos Bello, who haven’t made a mark yet mostly they are on the bench because of the system that the team uses.
It seems like the players were forced on the technical panel and they didn’t and still don’t fit in the technical panel’s plans.
All other Malawian teams have executive committees to make sure the players and technical committee are paid and are accountable mostly to their sponsors.
Silver Strikers are sponsored by the Reserve Bank, Big Bullets by cigarette manufacturers Nyasa Manufacturing Company, Blue Eagles by Malawi Police Service while Kamuzu Barracks and Mafco are sponsored by Malawi Defence Force (MDF).
Mafco is acronym for Malawi Armed Forces College. MDF has four teams in the Super League — Mafco (4th place), Kamuzu Barracks (5th), Moyale Barracks (7th) and Red Lions (11th).
Other teams in the 16-team top league are Mzuzu University (Mzuni) on 6th place, Azam Tigers (9th), Epac (10th), Dwangwa United (12th), Civo United (13th), Wizards (14th), Karonga United (15th) and Maxi Bullets (16th).
