By Petro Mkandawire

Blantyre, December 6, Mana: Silver Strikers has progresses to Airtel Top 8 semifinals with two goals after Mighty Mukuru Wanderers goofed off the second leg match on Wednesday at Kamuzu Stadium.

The Nomads played truant following the appeal of their board of directors to the court on their matter that the determination was not made in the spirit of fair play having noted that the cause of the matter was a bad decision by the referee on their first leg match with the bankers at Bingu National Stadium (BNS).

In a post-match interview, Silver Strikers Head Coach, Pieter De Jongh said it was a bad decision by Nomads not to show up for the game and bad market in the sector of football considering that Airtel Top 8 is one of the elite cups in Malawi and Airtel was a big sponsor.

“It is bad and this bears negative impact on the football of Malawi to abscond from the game as it dents the image of the country more especially on football sector. As a team, they were supposed to respect the rules of football,” said Jongh.

He added that following the incident they will still move forward looking for their next match where they will play against Mafco on December 10 at BNS saying they have to prepare well since Mafco has quality players which, if they hesitate the preparation, they will be disappointed with the results.

Nomads board is dismayed with the fact that both Football Association of Malawi (FAM) competitions and disciplinary committees do not take cognizance that the referee is the root cause of the challenges at hand so they have the game against Silver Strikers postponed until the matter is held and resolved.

Speaking with Malawi News Agency (MANA), FAM Competition and Communications Director, Gomezgani Zakazaka said it was unfortunate that the Nomads didn’t show up for the game.

He said this means that the rules and regulations of the competition will be followed and it is up to the competition committee to come up with a way forward.

“We do see this happening but not at this top level of the competition, when we are playing in the lower leagues, some of these things happened. We don’t expect that we are able to display such malpractice because such behaviors depress football in the country,” said Zakazaka.