1 week Ago By Tom Sangala
Seven countries from the Cosafa region have punched their tickets to the 2025 TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) finals to be staged in Morocco. But the Malawi National Football Team, the Flames, is among seven countries from Cosafa that will endure the pain of watching the Afcon finals on screens next year. Neighbours Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Botswana, Angola and Comoros have qualified for the Afcon finals whereas Malawi has failed alongside Lesotho, eSwatini, Madagascar, Namibia, Seychelles and Mauritius.
Apart from seven Cosafa teams, Malawi’s neighbours Tanzania also earned second consecutive qualification to the Afcon finals. Football Association of Malawi (Fam) President Fleetwood Haiya said he was locked up in a meeting. However, some soccer analysts say the qualification of other seven Cosafa teams should serve as a lesson to stakeholders to invest more resources in the team.
Sports analyst Sherry Msuku said Fam should start planning for the 2027 Afcon qualifiers “We should move on and plan for the future. “We need to put everything in order so that, by next year, we have a strong team to compete at the international stage,” he said. The Flames will miss the tournament for the second consecutive time, having qualified in 2021, when they managed to reach the round-of-16 for the first time in the history of the competition.
Despite finishing the qualifiers strongly following a 3-0 win over Burkina Faso and a goal-less stalemate against Burundi , Malawi finished bottom of Group L with four points from six matches. They finished behind Burundi on goal difference. Senegal qualified as Group L winners with 16 points from six matches, six points above second-placed Burkina Faso.
The Flames have only qualified for the Afcon finals three times—that is, in 1984, 2010 and 2021. However, only local coaches have guided the team to the continental showpiece finals..
