President of the Football Association of Malawi (FAM), Walter Nyamilandu, has expressed Malawi’s readiness to host the 10th edition of the Region 5 Youth Games in December.
Nyamilandu said this following the successful inaugural Confederations of African Football (CAF) Specifically on African Schools Football Championship which was held in Lilongwe as test games for the upcoming Region 5 Games.
Speaking on the sidelines after the prize presentations, Nyamilandu said the country is geared to emphatically host this historic event.
“From both the hosting and technical point of view, we have assessed that we are more than ready for the Region 5 Youth Games and we cannot wait for the games to begin,” he said.
Nyamilandu further said the CAF/Council of Southern African Football Association (COSAFA) qualifiers test games ahead of the youth games have concluded remarkably and served its purpose in line with Region 5 which is talent identification.
“It has been a huge success, we didn’t expect to come this far and so I can confirm that it went according to plan as we hosted the school teams with no complaints. The venue was magnificent, some of us have been very surprised with the standard of play, I saw talent In schools and hence it has achieved the purpose, to acknowledge talent from both boys and girls,” Nyamilandu insisted.
COSAFA President Artur de Almeida e Silva said they are looking forward to the Region 5 Youth Games and expressed satisfaction with the countries that are actively hosting these tournaments as Malawi is expected to host this year’s tournament.
“Region 5 has a lot of sports disciplines including football and our delegates from COSAFA will come during the games to ensure all goes well. The idea is for all countries in the region to host tournaments and so we are working with CAF to enhance everybody’s participation,” he said.
De Almeida e Silva hailed the idea of incorporating school sports in the COSAFA calendar and further called on all regional member countries to work together to improve football in Africa.
“These games were for under 15, we already have under 17 games but we want younger talent to be involved as we are progressing.” He emphasized.
De Almeida e Silva went on to thank CAF for the school championship because it’s amazing for young people, a good opportunity for Africa to reorganize the base of its football and appreciated those sponsors who availed themselves from Malawi and called for more sponsors.
Meanwhile, COSAFA intends to use the region 5 games as Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers for under 17 boys and girls.
Participants in the CAF games were teams from South Africa, Seychelles, Comoros, Angola Botswana and hosts Malawi.
