Central Region Chipiku League teams have expressed optimistic for the better 2023 football season after Central Region Football Association (CRFA) held what they described as a ‘successful’ annual General Meeting on Saturday in Lilongwe.
The meeting brought together 37 delegates from each member associations, teams representatives as well as officials from referees body for the revelation of last season’s financial report as well as agendas and preparations for the upcoming season.
During the meeting, CRFA announced the hiking of affiliation fees from K300,000 to K350,000 for the Premier Division League where as the division one teams will be required to pay K300,000 from K270,000.
General Secretary Bernard Chiwiriwiri Harawa confirmed the development in an interview: “With the rise of cost of living, referees will demand much more this time around so we need to push the affiliation fees and we have put a clause in addition to that which demands every time to pay affliction fee in full before kick-off”
After realizing failure to fulfill some fixtures by a number of teams in both divisions, the CRFA has also decided to stiffen the sanctions to such teams by setting the K250,000 fine from last seasons K50,000.
The CRFA and teams have also agreed to change the format of the League which will see teams playing more games than last season.
“We had a meeting with teams three weeks ago where they asked for the change. Before Covid all teams were playing in one pot, then we changed to three phases until last season and now they have asked again to have two pots, the first one teams will be divided into three zones comprising of 8 teams and the top four teams from each zone will qualify to the last round of 12 teams in one pot where the champion will be produced” added Harawa
Harawa has also revealed that CRFA is set to open it’s fully fledged secretariat office next month April where, administrator, Accountant, clerk and all necessities will be available.
On his part vice chairman for the CRFA Godwill Chinjoka commended the meeting as fruitful where last season’s weaknesses were spotted and achievements in which they build on to bring some measures of improving competition and officiation as well as enhancing sponsorship to all division and district teams.
Representing St. Gabriel Medicals, General Secretary Wellington Mzunga said the meeting was an advantage to teams to bring concerns and map the way forward on how 2023 football season should be run to the interest of all parties.
Reacting to CRFA’s decision of hiking the affliction fee Mzunga said: “though the adjustment of affiliation fees will bring financal challenges to most of the teams who rely on individual’s pockets but I believe the funds will help to improve finances for the association so we have welcomed the idea”
The General Secretary for the Central Region Referees Association Innocent Kaundula has asked for good working relationships from the CRFA and District Football Committee with the referees body as one way of dealing with officiation challenges encountered in the previous seasons.
Kaundula has also asked CRFA and District League Committees to work on providing maximum security to the referees on duty as they face alot of physical assaults in many games.
He further warned to take serious actions on referees who intends to deliberately compromise rules of the game in the upcoming season.
The CRFA announced that the 2023 season will start on 16th April as Chipiku maintains it’s K16.5million sponsorship to the League where as the Nyasa Capital Finance will come again with the K8.3million sponsorship package.
