The fate of Flames coach Kinnah Phiri will be known on June18 when government convenes a stakeholders meeting to discuss whether the coach and his back room staff deserve new contracts.
The stakeholders meeting will be held just a day after Malawi’s decisive Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Chad in which the Flames have to win or else they are out of the competition.
The result of the Chad game will have a large impact on the decision to be taken by the stakeholders comprising Malawi National Council of Sports, Football Association of Malawi and Ministry of Youth Development and Sports officials.
Fam already wrote Ministry of Youth Development and Sports recommending that the coach’s contract be renewed.
However, director of sport s Jameson Ndalama has said Fam’s letter among other things fell short of detailing the reasons why the coach’s contract should be renewed.
“Issues of contracts are personal so it would be difficult for me to shed more light on this. But I can confirm to you that we as government have called for a stakeholders meeting to be held on June 18. The meeting will tackle all issues to do with the coach’s contract and make a decision forthwith,” Ndalama said in an exclusive interview.
He further explained that Fam’s letter of recommendation was not enough for government to offer the coach a new contract.
“We received the letter of recommendation from Fam, but there are some issues to be considered before coming up with a decision. We need to discuss these issues for us to come up with a well informed, justified position on this matter,” he said.
“There are three issues that we need to discuss at the meeting. First we need to evaluate the contract itself. Is it serving our purpose as government who are the employers? What should we change in order for the contract to serve us?
“We also have to evaluate the performance of the coach himself. We need to look at the games played, games lost, won or drawn. What were the objectives or targets set in the contract and have we managed too achieve them? Looking at the performance of the national team are we going in the right direction or not?”
As head coach since 2008, Kinnah has played 65 games, lost 21, won 19 and drawn 24 games, representing about 30 percent win.
He managed to qualify for the 2010 Angola Afcon finals but failed to repeat the feat in 2012 Afcon finals.
“We expected the letter of recommendation from Fam to thoroughly cover all these areas but unfortunately it didn’t. It only mentions the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations qualification as a bench mark for the reason to renew the contract yet we failed to maintain this a year later,” he said.
“Another thing Fam has been silent on is that government employs three people in the technical panel-the coach, his assistant Young Chimodzi and the technical director Jack Chamangwana. Yet the recommendation letter talked of Kinnah only.”
Fam general secretary Suzgo Nyirenda said they were yet to be communicated on the June 18 meeting.
“We had a similar meeting when the team was in Kenya and they told us that they would communicate on the next meeting,” Nyirenda said.
There have been calls for Kinnah’s head after the team drew against Nigeria, but the coach has already refused to throw in the towel.
But Nyirenda asked for patience from the public.
“People have their opinion, but sometimes it’s not good to rush to criticize the coach. Of course, we failed to qualify for the last Afcon final but let’s not be quick to call for the coach to resign. Let’s wait for the Chad game,” the GS said.
