Nomads, BB Carlsberg final grosses record K29 million

Saturday’s Carlsberg Cup final involving traditional arch-rivals Mighty Be Forward and Big Bullets grossed a record K29,387,820.00, which is close to the entire sponsorship for the Carlsberg Cup football competition of K30 million.

According to records obtained by Nyasa Times from the counting room at Civo Stadium, Wanderers, Bullets and ground owners Civil Service Sporting Club pocketed K5,229, 573,60 each from the total revenue with Football Association of Malawi (Fam) carting home K4,183,658.88.

Sports Council got K1,045,914.72 with security police personnel and match stalwarts sharing K996,500.00 and K810,000.00 respectively.

Cashiers and supervisors drew K2,351,025.60 and K1,650,000.00 in that order while K115,000 went to the MDF personnel that entertained the crowd and assisted in crowd control.

Miscellaneous expenses amounted to K1,932,000.00. The bulk of the amount went towards the purchase of entry tickets from South Africa.

According to Fam’s financial manager Christopher Ndolo, Saturday’s revenue is the highest amount ever collected from a local football match in the country’s football history.

Fans were paying a whooping K10,000 to watch the game from the VIP Stand, K5,000 for the covered stands and K2,000 for the open stands.

Prior to the final, Fam had arranged to sell tickets in advance but the arrangement was cancelled at the eleventh hour after the two finalists had vehemently objected to the idea.

The clubs feared there would have been be no transparency on the part of the football authorities as it would have been difficult for the teams to verify how many tickets were sold and how many were not.