By Linda Kwanjana
Super League of Malawi (SULOM) says despite the congestion on the football fixture for the elite league in the 2023 soccer season, mechanisms are in place to ensure that the league finishes in time, on the same day and without occasioning any negative externalities.
SULOM made these sentiments during a press briefing chaired by vice president Colonel Gilbert Mitawa, where they emphasized that due to the adoption of one game per week policy, it has made the 2023 super league season highly competitive and exciting as the policy has been a key driving force towards Reviving, Reforming and Rebranding the elite league.
“Let me, however admit that implementation of this policy has not been an easy task. The main challenge has been fixture congestion due to several factors. Firstly, several stadiums were closed for maintenance and failure to meet licencing infrastructure requirements. This forced SULOM to reschedule some matches against the provisional season fixture that had been released at the beginning of the season,” reads part of the statement.
They also mentioned some other factors to be National team engagements and unplanned prolonged camping of the national team together with the introduction of CASTEL CUP including participation of Nyasa Big Bullets in CAF Champions league.
“SULOM understands the negative impact of fixture congestion to Clubs, players and the league as a whole. Fixture congestion undermines efforts to professionalize the game but most importantly, affects the welfare of players due to risk of fatigue, burn out and undesirable injuries,” the statement adds.
On the other hand, SULOM highlighted that this situation is not seen only in Malawi football as Europe and South Africa elite league were also affected with Qatar World Cup and CAF competitions respectively.
However SULOM assures its affiliates and all football loving Malawians that it is taking measures to mitigate the impact of congestion for the remaining 2023 fixtures, among others there is an introduction of mid-week games especially for teams that have fewer games than others.
They also admitted that they are engaging their mother body FAM to allocate Mid-week cup games to mitigate the impact of fixture congestion and player burn out, further more they expect that National team will not have extended camping periods as has been the case in the past.
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