Crowd pullers FCB Nyasa Bullets’ final TNM Super League match against Mzuzu City Hammers at Kamuzu Stadium in Blantyre on Saturday registered one of the lowest gate revenue collection by the People’s Team’s own standards. Played in an almost empty stadium, the second-place decider, which Bullets won 4-0, grossed K990 000 with K888 050 going towards expenses, leaving a balance of K101 950 from which the two teams got K38 231. Stadium owners, Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture received K25 000 while other stakeholders such as Super League of Malawi (Sulom), Football Association of Malawi (FAM) and Malawi National Council of Sports walked away with no penny.
Bullets acting chief executive officer (CEO) Albert Chigoga and the club’s commercial manager Kevin Moyo conceded that it was one of the lowest gate revenue collections because even friendly matches rake in not less than K3 million. Chigoga attributed the poor patronage to the match’s status and bad weather. He said: “It is a combination of two factors.
First, the weather was very bad. Secondly, the game itself was taken as dead rubber by most of our fans, though it had huge significance of making us the runners up. “We are serial winners.
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Our fans are used to winning competitions. Others felt they would not want to settle for anything less. Chigoga said the picture would have been different had they won their match against Mighty Tigers, which ended goalless, as the title chase would have gone to the wire.
“If we had won against Tigers in our penultimate match, the majority of our fans would have come to watch the game, hoping that we would perhaps win TNM Super League title. However, it did not work as expected,” he said. On his part, Moyo said: “This is the worst after the Bullets versus Karonga [United] match in 2022, by then the championship had also been decided and we grossed less than K1 million and it was our last match as well.
“Considering the weather and that perhaps the fans thought it was of little significance and, as such, they decided to stay away.” In an interview, seasoned sports journalist Frank Kandu said while Bullets fans felt the match was insignificant, “but weather played the bigger part”. In contrast, the title-crowning match between champions Mighty Wanderers and Kamuzu Barracks FC at Bingu National Stadium in Lillongwe the same afternoon, grossed K17.69 million with K7.6 million going towards expenses. The two teams received K2.76 million each, K2.51 million went towards ground levy, Sulom received K1 million while FAM and Sports Council each got K502 000.
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