FDH Bank hands-over K190m Flames’ bus to FAM

Malawi’s leading home-grown FDH Financial institution, FDH Holdings Limited on Monday fulfilled its pledge to buy the Malawi national football team a top of the range Yutong customised coach valued at K190 million by handing over the bus to Football Association of Malawi (FAM) in Blantyre.

The handing over of the new state of the art bus, through FDH Bank, the official sponsors of the country’s flagship football squad, which is popularly known as the Flames was held at the bank’ headquarters in the commercial city of Blantyre.

FDH Financial Holdings Group Chief Executive Officer )CEO) William Mpinganjira said during the hand over ceremony: “The bank remains committed to continuing the long partnership with Football Association of Malawi to ensure that football continues to develop in the country.

“When we were in Cameroon, the team performed beyond our expectations and when we reached the Round of 16 of the competition, we discussed how best we could reward the players and the team for the job well done and we made a promised to buy them a bus as official sponsors of the team.”

“This bus is one of the newly manufactured and it has cost us MK190 million in order for the Flames to get this custom made coach to promote and encourage the players to keep on doing well for the nation.

“As FDH, we remain committed to developing football in Malawi. It’s a long term commitment and we are going nowhere because we believe in collective responsibility for us to achieve more as a nation,” he said.

On his part, FAM President Walter Nyamilandu was left speechless with the latest gesture from the bank, saying as an association, they never saw it coming.

“Grateful to FDH Bank for this gesture,” he said.

Added the FAM boss: “They (FDH) have been supporting the Flames by honouring their contract and they owed us nothing because they have always been there for us, but giving us a bus is something, which we never saw it coming. As FAM, we will never leave FDH alone, we are with them throughout,” he said.

According to Nyamilandu, the bus will first be used by the Beach Soccer team which qualified for Beach Soccer Africa Cup of Nations finals which will be hosted by Mozambique later this year.

“This bus will firstly be used by Beach Soccer team which leaves for Mozambique for the tournament. We don’t want to use a plane, we want to use this machine so that we enjoy the journey. We are very thankful to FDH for the timely response,” he added.

Some Flames players were also part of the ceremony and their representative was Vice Captain Stanley Sanudi who said: “It is ‘an honour’ to have FDH as the official sponsor.

“On behalf of my fellow players, I would to thank FDH for this gesture. They pledged when we were at Afcon and today, they have fulfilled it, it an honour to have them as our partners and this has motivated us to do well in the future,” he explained.

Meanwhile, Malawi National Council for Sports through its Acting Executive Secretary Shepherd Boma has hailed FDH for honouring their pledge.

“Today, we have experienced the magical power of sport. As government, we are very grateful to FDH for honouring their pledge and for their continued support towards football and sports in general.

“This signifies one thing, this Bank is indeed the bank for Malawians and we should always be proud of what they have been doing for all the sporting disciplines in Malawi,” he said, adding; “We would like to thank MRA for giving a waiver on the bus.