Malawi Olympafrica centre hosts FutbolNet tourney
About 90 young boys and girls from different schools within Lilongwe city over the weekend gathered at Malawi Olympic Committee’s (Moc) Olympafrica Centre in Kawale II as the centre hosted the third edition of Samsung sponsored FutbolNet games.
For the past there years, the Olympafrica centre has been holding Samsung FutbolNet games involving youngsters under the age of 15.
Apart from equipping the youngsters with different values and life skills, the games have also been used as a platform for selecting Under 12 and Under 15 representing Malawi at the annual regional FutbolNet tournament involving Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Outstanding players from this year’s tournament have also made their way into the U-12 and U-15 teams expected to represent Malawi at the regional tournament to be hosted by Zimbabwe from June 17 to 18this year.
Moc president Oscar Kanjala, speaking after presiding over this year’s event said the games have achieved the centre’s purpose of equipping the young with proper values using sports.
“FutbolNet is not just about scoring goals. This is a sport that is used to equip the youth with playing skills, team spirit and moral standards. Only teams that demonstrated all these elements on the playing pitch excel in the sport,” sad Kanjala.
FutbolNet was invented by football academies owned by Spanish football giants FC Barcelona and is one of the popular sporting disciplines played in Olympafrica centres.
On the side-lines of this year’s event, the local Noc presented two scholarships of US $500 (About MK300,000) each to a boy and a girl, who were outstanding during the Iba Mbaye Fellowship hosted by the Olympafrica centre in November last year.
Under the fellowship, young athletes participated in a training programme covering issues of Olympism, doping and culture. The youngsters also competed in several athletics’ categories.
After an evaluation of the programme, Akuzike Lifa, a boy from Kawale and Rebecca Chapasa from Chankhandwe primary schools emerged overall best candidates. They were presented with the Iba Mbaye scholarships by Kanjala.
