Silver Strikers are through to the Semifinal of the Airtel Top 8 Cup after Mighty Mukuru Wanderers failed to show up at Kamuzu Stadium on Wednesday afternoon.

Wanderers did not show up for the match after they appealed against a determination by Football Association of Malawi Disciplinary Committee to uphold the first verdict from the competitions committee regarding their controversial first leg match against silver at Bingu Stadium.

The referee for the match, Newton Nyirenda, waited for 30 minutes before blowing the whistle to mark the end of the match.

This means that wanderers are out of Airtel top 8 after losing 4-0 to silver on aggregate and will face MAFCO Fc in the semifinals on Sunday.

Meanwhile, 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.

“This has a negative impact on our football in Malawi, it is not good. Airtel is a big sponsor of football, a big company and we need to respect Airtel, We can talk of a lot of things but my opinion is that you must always come to fight on the pitch not like this,” said De Jongh

FAM Competition and Communications Director, Gomezgani Zakazaka said it was unfortunate that the Nomads didn’t show up for the game and rules and regulations of the competition will be followed.

“It’s quiet unfortunate that thing has happened like this but they are rules and regulations that will be interpreted by the Competitions Disciplinary Committee and make  a decision.  As FAM we scheduled this match, its just unfortunate that Mighty Mukuru Wanderers did not show up,” said Zakazaka.

According to the Club Licensing policy, any team that boycott a matches like the Nomads has done is banned from participating in all competitions that are managed by FAM.

The winner between Silver Strikers and MAFCO will play against FCB Nyasa Big Bullets in the finals of the Airtel top 8.