Corry Ihuhua
25 November 2008
NAMIBIA'S under-17 football side manager Jakes Amaning said he was shocked to learn that most of the Malawian players who beat Namibia 7-1 in an African Youth Championships qualifier in Blantyre at the weekend were drawn from the premiership clubs in that country.
"Malawi played well and deserved to qualify but these cant be under-17 players.
How can under-17 players be drawn from senior clubs?," Amaning said after the match in Blantyre.
He added: "Our players are from an under-17 league and schools, we are not totally disappointed because we know these are the future of our senior team.
Malawi will pay for this, these players will not be there in five years.
I wanted to lodge a complaint to the match commissioner about age cheating but I did not after our football association president called that we must not, in the interest of sportsmanship."
It is believed that Malawian striker Andy Simkonda, who scored five goals on Saturday, is the only player who never travelled with Malawi to Namibia for the first leg because of a harm string injury.
According to one of the Malawian reporters, Peter Kanyere, who covered the match, it was a balanced match and Namibia had many chances especially in the first half.
"But they missed and the Namibian goalkeeper made two blunders fumbling the ball allowing Simkonda to score, to me I think the keeper was completely off form and this demoralised the rest of the team," he wrote to The Namibian Sport.
Malawi under-17 coach Patrick Kulemeka dismissed the Namibians' complaint by saying that it "lacked substance, let alone honesty".
"They tortured us in Namibia, locking the gate and deliberately denying us the red uniform agreed in a pre-match meeting.
There was total chaos and we are not surprised.
Even South Africa did the same.
We went to the Immigration Department over the issue of ages and found nothing," he said.
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