The Malawi National Council of sports (MNCS) has said it is very impressed with the report findings of the revenue from gate collections which has been made public by the taskforce committee led by Dr. Richard Nyirongo.
The sentiments were made by MNCS Chairperson Dr. Sunduzwayo Madise during the presentation of the findings at Malawi sun hotel in Blantyre.
‘’I think the committee was able to dig and found out what is really happening, some of issues in the report are just confirmations of what we have heard and suspected, but some of them were insight of how fraud and theft is perpetuated. What was more revealing is the involvement of some who are close to the sits of power in these clubs as well as the management of the stadia. I think that has opened our eyes, that the problem is not only on the surface but it is deep rooted and the system needs to be broken, it needs to be dismantled’’ explained Madise.
Making his remarks after the presentation Chairperson of the taskforce committee Dr. Richard Nyirongo explained that there is indeed a big problem of theft and fraud in the way gate collections are managed.
‘’The recommendations are that probably we should look at what are the challenges that lead to money to get lost and be stolen by people, now the major recommendation was that we should go into e-ticketing so that we should reduce the presence of money at the stadium and have a cashless kind of system where people can enter the stadium without producing cash, so there are so many recommendations that have been made but the major one is e-ticketing’’ explained Nyirongo.
Commenting on the report findings Football Association of Malawi (FAM) Commercial and marketing Director Limbani Matola explained that the report has not come as a surprise and it is a true reflection of what is happening on the ground
‘’ The report confirms that there is theft and fraud that is happening at some of the matches that are happening across the country, the report has been able to identify and isolate the causes of the challenges in terms of culture, the people involved and infrastructure. As FAM we have done our part because one of the recommendations is about e-ticketing and for the past 3-4 years FAM has been making strides and as far as we are concerned, we just need to expand the capacity’’. Explained Matola
Super League of Malawi (SULOM) President Fleetwood Haiya also concurred with Matola by totally agreeing with the findings of the report.
‘’ This is why as SULOM we have taken an initiative, the number one step we took was to make sure that we don’t spend on the source, that is to say that whatever we collect at the gate we are not paying using cash, we agreed with the teams that payment will be transferred either the same day or the following banking day just to make sure there is accountability on their end and also on our end and we believe that this is going to reduce gate fraud and indeed what has been happening before’’. Explained Haiya.
The Taskforce committee on revenue from gate collections was instituted by MNCS through Dr. Madise on 21 June, 2022 to investigate the issues of gate theft and fraud and come up with a comprehensive strategy and framework of how to deal with the vice.
Different stakeholders attended the presentation of the findings including the Football Association of Malawi, Super League of Malawi, Football Clubs representative, Officials from the police, as well as the media.