By George Mponda

Karonga, May 4, Mana: Minister of Youth and Sports, Uchizi Mkandawire says he plans to discuss with Malawi National Council of Sports (MNCS) officials to consider stopping collection of a percentage of gate receipts during football matches at district stadiums.

The Minister said this at Karonga Stadium, Friday where he went to inspect the facility which was opened in 2018, following media reports describing the stadiums of poor state.

He said district councils are facing a lot of challenges to repair their stadiums due to inadequate financial resources.  

Mkandawire said: “The revenue councils collect from matches should be enough to cover the cost of repairs but it is shared among several stakeholders.

“This is why I will engage the Malawi Council of Sports Council to stop collecting their percentage from stadium gate collections in order for district councils to have enough money for repairs."

He asked Karonga District Council to engage communities in solving the problems rocking the district’s stadium, warning that community members, teams and the district council will be negatively affected if Football Association of Malawi (FAM) bans the stadium from hosting games.  

In a separate interview, general secretary for Karonga United FC, Ramsey Simwaka said they bank on the mercy of FAM officials who authorize teams to use Karonga Stadium in its bad state, due to scarcity of stadiums in the northern region.  

Karonga Stadium Manager, Wilson Ngwira blamed farming activities around the stadium for causing water to flood inside the facility.

"The stadium has ponds outside which are used to drain water from the facility's drainage system. Unfortunately, the ponds are full of silt because local people are cutlivating rice around the ponds," Ngwira said.

"The stadium was also constructed on a water logged site and Karonga ground water has high iron content which is also causing the iron poles around the stadium to corrode quickly. Community members have also been vandalising toilets, wire fences and electrical equipment," he added.