Walter justifies non-advertised Malawi coaching job

President of the Football Association of Malawi (Fam), Walter Nyamilandu has justified why the association did not advertise the vacancy of the Malawi head coach job, saying  they went on “searching” and  the choice of Belgian Ronny Van Geneugden  (RVG) as the new coach of Malawi on a two-year deal is merited.

The Fam president said they needed   “new mentality and a new attitude “ as Malawi’s results in the past two years have not been good and believes Van Geneugden will “turn things around”.

“We never advertised for the job because experience has shown that in the football industry we head hunt or go for shopping,” said Nyamilandu as he unveiled  the 48-year-old tactician  will be assisted by former Flames international Gerald Phiri, who last month was named interim coach, as well as Deklerk Msakakuona.

“We searched high and low and shortlisted three or four candidates. We discussed as an executive committee and the technical director and narrowed down to one candidate,” explained Nyamilandu.

He said i n the past, FAM have conducted interviews for the coaching job, but we have achieved nothing.

“We paraded the coaches and spent money on them. They came and spoke the [football] lingua franca but delivered no results.” Nyamilandu said.

He said  the Belgian coach has been given short-term and long-term targets.

“The contract has key performance indicators and expectations,” he said.

“We are on a revival campaign to get back to winning ways and you know we are participating in the Africa Cup of Nations and CHAN competitions in the next year, so we want our performance to be better,” Nyamilandu said.

“We are meeting the African champions Cameroon, we are meeting Morocco who are coached by the two-time Africa Cup of Nations winner Herve Renard.

“For us to compete against the best in the world we need to have the right man behind the national team and that is why we said let us look for an expatriate coach.”

Rather than the government, who have said they can no longer pay a foreign coach’s wages, FAM partners FDH and Fifa will be responsible for the coach’s perks.

Nyamilandu could not disclose the salary and condition of service for RVG.

“ We have confidentiality in the contract, so I will not be able to diverge the perks,” he said

But  Nyamilandu said financial statements on how much they will spend on RVG will be available at the end of the year.

The Belgian has never worked in Africa before nor in international football but said he has knowledge about the continent.

““My uncle settled in Africa after finishing his university studies. He lived in Africa for 20 years before he died here. Every time he came home, he always talked about Africa. So I grew up hearing stories about Africa. It was my goal that one day I should work in Africa. Now, this is my opportunity,” he said.

RVG promised to bring good results for the Malawi national team but also youth football development .

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