Malawi arranges for another friendly

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Category: Sports News

Published on Tuesday, 14 August 2012 10:22

Written by Queen Nhlema

Officials of the Football Association of Malawi (FAM) are arranging for another friendly match on August 25 or 26, following the cancellation of friendly with Uganda.

“It would be suicidal to face the African giants who reached the quarter-finals of the last World Cup without a strength-testing match,” said FAM president Walter Nyamilandu.

FAM announced on Thursday last week that they have the friendly match on health grounds following an outbreak of deadly Ebola in the east African country.

Flames coach Kinna Phiri described that cancellation of the friendly as a major setback in the countdown to the Ghana game.

Ghana’s Black Stars are scheduled to take on China on Wednesday in a friendly match in preparation for the Flames.

Earlier, Uganda FA spokesperson Rodgers Mulindwa told that country’s Daily Monitor Newspaper that the cancellation was because of FAM’s lack funds to host the Cranes. 

“They raised the Ebola issue some time back, but we explained these are isolated cases and they convinced. The truth is that they do have money to meet the costs,” Mulindwa is quoted by the paper.

The paper further reported that this was despite assurances from the World Health Organization (WHO) that Uganda was safe for people to come in and out.

But FAM officials have laughed off Uganda’s claims.

“If that is what they (Fufa) are saying, then it is very unfortunate because the government had already committed funding for the match. In fact, if the issue was about funding, then the national team would not have proceeded with camping.

“The truth of the matter is that the game has been cancelled because of the health risk that the  country would have been exposed to,” Nyamilandu told The Nation newspaper.

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