On Player Rewards and Performance

Malawi is one country in Africa where rewards for all kinds of sports men and women are ridiculously trivial. Such rewards include their monthly pays and such other payments as management may deem necessary from time to time.

Sports people are supposed to receive monthly upkeeps which are fixed and included in the document which stipulates all the contract conditions. They also receive rewards after a won game which is like an allowance.

Most sportsmen in Malawi especially footballers have complained for many times that their rewards are so trivial that they cannot afford to carter for their daily needs.

Some time back, president Bingu wa Mutharika argued that the poor standards of football in Malawi is not necessarily that there are no talented footballers in the country but is largely due to the fact that footballers concentrate on something else when they are not involved in a task involving football.

What the president was trying to put forward was that it is impossible for a footballer to deliver to the best of his ability if he spent his whole previous day working on his maize field.

But the question that instantaneously invades the mind of a football-conscious individual is: who is really responsible for the habit of footballers engaging themselves in extra activities which in the end sap their enthusiasm on the sports field? Is it the footballers themselves or their respective teams’ managements or both?

Before I put across my opinion, it should be undoubtedly acknowledged that footballers in Malawi have not been made to take sports as their noble careers unlike in other countries. Unlike someone who is working as a teacher or as a driver, a football player needs to dedicate his whole self to sports.

Any psychological and physical distractions obviously pose tremendous challenges to the capabilities of players. A football player is supposed to have enough time for nurturing his career.

But in Malawi, you will find that a national team player goes to do other extra activities like farming after training, to fend for his family. Why? Because he gets peanuts for his rewards.

The fact that footballers engage in other activities to earn some extra bucks present two problems. Apart from the problem that when he gets onto the pitch, he is somehow already exhausted, it also denies him a chance of watching some football games on some football channels where he may learn some skills.

The leisure time for footballers is spent even on hard tasks. This is because they do not get enough money on football which can keep them going through the whole month. It appears clubs are only interested in the services of the players but when it comes to rewarding them, the clubs’ managements become reluctant.

For many times it had been reported in the media that such and such players have boycotted training sessions because they have not yet been given their rewards for the past three months or so; or a team has suspended a player because of asking for his monies.

If clubs sign players, they are supposed to fulfil the stipulations that are there in the contract document. There is no stipulation which may say a player may receive his monthly salary after three months. Or even if there is no provision about player rewards, rules of natural justice would beat any club’s management that delays payments for its players.

The trivial rewards that players get are what prompt them to become farmers, businessmen and even conductors in some cases. Interestingly, many stakeholders that extol the virtues of revamping football standards in Malawi never tackle the issue of player rewards.

They are only concerned with other areas like the identification of hidden talent. What these stakeholders pass over is the fact that even the hidden talent will not deliver to the best of their capabilities if they are rewarded trivially, a thing that will definitely sap their will for a classic display.

It is no denying fact that in Malawi, footballers are not full-time employees. They are made to make themselves so because of their salaries which have to be complimented with money realized from endeavours.

Of course it is not wrong for footballers to engage in some extra money earning activities but the activities should not be physical and even they are physical, they should not be too involving.

During an off-season period, Malawian players become full-time businessmen and farmers. The trivial monthly salaries coupled with the absence of allowances after a game, compel them to do such things.

In normal circumstances the off-season period is supposed to be used by a footballer to improve his performance. That is why in America or Europe players appeal to their respective clubs to loan them to other clubs which are on-season. The recess can largely affect the performance of a player if it is not put to some productive cause.

There are many talented footballers who do not want to feature anywhere in football in Malawi because of the poor rewards. Of course one may argue that it is not good for a footballer to have a preconceived money-oriented mindset, but the blinding truth is that no one would want to do a job without being rewarded satisfactorily.

Unless footballers are rewarded handsomely, they will continue engaging in other extra activities to earn money and this will continue retarding the standards of football in Malawi.

They will even flock to Mozambican clubs where football standards are not better than Malawi’s Clubs. Clubs should make sure they reward their respective players in time instead of suspending them for humbly asking for what belongs to them.