By Linda Kwanjana

Listed NBS Bank and Football Association of Malawi (FAM) have announced that the NBS National Division League (NDL) will kick off on May 24 in Mchinji with great optimism that it will improve the country’s football quality.

The Bank’s Chief Operating Officer, Shadrick Chikusilo, and FAM president, Fleetwood Haiya made the announcement jointly during the media kick off session at Mpira Village in Blantyre on Friday.

“We are very excited that this league is kicking off. When the FAM president and his team came to bring us the concept to transform football in Malawi and its significance in terms of our tiers in the football league, plus the impact it will have, we felt that it was a cause that we needed to jump into and assist.  We feel it is a good choice that we made to partner with FAM on this transformative agenda.”

“You all know we are a Bank, and once the brand is found everywhere, it becomes so easy to do business, so we will take advantage of the preference of us being everywhere to market our products,” said Chikusilo.

In his remarks, Haiya stated that the NBS Bank NDL will bring more competition to the Super League.

He also announced that the recent FAM executive meeting agreed to raise the subvention for the teams to participate in the NDL to K15 million.

“I thank NBS for helping us ensure these teams receive a subvention initially set at K7.5 million, but has now increased to K15 million. This is just like seed money, it might not be sufficient, but we believe it will provide a solid starting point for the teams to compete and honour all the fixtures,” said Haiya.

NBS Bank injected K982 million into the NDL for three seasons, and will involve 12 teams from the regional football leagues and the three relegated from the Super League. The top three teams in the NDL will qualify for the Super League next season.

The first match will see Villa United host Mitundu Baptist at Mchinji Community Centre Ground.