In a guest to improve youth football in the country, the football Association of Malawi FAM says it has partnered with International football governing body FIFA to establish an Academy at Luwinga in Mzuzu district which will among other things provide a platform that will help develop World class talent.
In an interview with ProjectM, FAM President Walter Nyamilandu, thanked FIFA and AFB which is involved in setting up academies around the world for the trust and confidence in the Football Association of Malawi saying the dream to have an academy in the area has now come to pass hence the negotiations between FAM and the concerned parties will take place this week to map the way forward.
Nyamilandu added that apart from FIFA, another international organization known as AFB which is involved in setting up academies around the globe has also joined the band wagon to assist in the establishment of the project.
‘’FIFA and AFB should therefore receive an honourable mention as we announce today that we have gone into partnership with the two for the yet to be established academy at Luwinga in Mzuzu city. We are incredibly excited with such wonderful news because it’s a thing which we have been waiting for. In fact we want to give a good chance to the upcoming talented players not only to play football in Malawi but to go and ply their trade in Europe’’,said Nyamilandu.
Nyamilandu spoke candidly that the academy will also be known as the high performance centre as it will give an opportunity to young boys and girls to excel and compete in countries such as Spain, England just to mention but a few.
He actively said apart from this, the project will also enable the National team to qualify consistently for African Cup of Nations and the World Cup adding that the infrastructure has already been identified.
‘We know there are a lot of passionate Malawians who are running academies locally but have always been the architect of their downfall due to lack of financial support hence the failure to match with international standards. We can not make significant progress in football and any other sporting activities if we are not investing much in our academies. Thats how our counterparts in the North and west such as morocco,Ghana, Senegal and others have become a blue moon shining on the continent in various tournaments particularly sports because they invested a lot in their academies’’,Nyamilandu said.
On this he has asked both the public and private sectors to pump in their financial support towards the development of youth football in the country in order to produce good talent.