The Football Association of Zambia president Andrew Kamanga headlined the “Corporate Partners Meet” organized by the Football Association of Malawi (FAM) held at Amaryllis Hotel in Blantyre.
Kamanga who was the keynote speaker shared the Zambian experience with football sponsorship.
The objective of the event themed “Transforming Your Brand” was to paint a picture of the Malawi landscape and highlight available sponsorship and partnership opportunities.
“The Zambian football sponsorship landscape has evolved over the years from the time the mining firms were actively sponsoring sport to where we are today.
From time immemorial, Zambia has enjoyed its status as one of the biggest world producers of copper which has been a major economic driver. With the flourishing copper production in the early 1970s through to the late 1980s, sport in general and football in particular was inevitably a beneficiary of the mining activities,” Kamanga said.
“However, in the early 1990s with the advent of privatization under the multi-party system, the mining sector underwent major disruptions that affected almost every aspect of the Zambian economy. Sports sponsorship in general and recreational activities were not spared as they were either drastically scaled down or discontinued.”
He added: “Arising from these upheavals in the mining sector and the uncertainty it created in the management of sports in the country, the Zambian football administrators had to re-reorganize themselves and re-think their strategy.
With the dawn of the new millennium, the Zambian football landscape shifted its focus from the mining firms to more engagement with the corporate world.”
The FAZ chief said that the chaos in the mining sector saw new partners enter the Zambian football sponsorship landscape with telecommunications giant MTN and broadcast heavies SuperSport entering the fray.
“I must hasten to mention that clinching the sponsorship deal with MTN was one thing but sustaining the sponsorship for more than a decade has taken a lot of dynamism. With the event of time, we saw the coming in of ABSA who have been sponsoring ABSA Cup competition for over 15 years now. Other companies who came on board included Zambian Breweries and Betway who have also been sponsoring the men`s league. Toyota Zambia came in as a transport partner for the secretariat,” he said.
Kamanga said football in the current space needed to be treated as a business opportunity.
“Corporates in today’s business world, should see football as more of an Economic opportunity than as social service. Sponsoring the Football Association or indeed the league should be treated as an investment (corporate social investment) and not a Corporate Social responsibility (CSR),” he said.
The FAZ boss highlighted the Zambian novel idea of KoPa that has become a huge success.
“As a way of hedging against the uncertainty that comes with corporate sponsorship, my administration came up with innovative ways of raising funds among which was the sale of merchandise under the brand name KoPa. The main objective of introducing the KoPa brand was to attain financial independence, away from government grants and corporate sponsorship,” he said.
“From the time the first edition was introduced in 2018, the brand has gained unprecedented exponential growth with a huge support base from both corporate and individual customers. As we speak today, we are barely meeting the demand for the KoPa merchandise with calls for more capital injection to sustain the demand. It is our desire that the KoPa brand will spread its tentacles to neighboring countries including Malawi, Zimbabwe and indeed Kenya.”
Kamanga also cited the Chipolopolo bond that was on the cards awaiting government approval.
“Another initiative in our strategic plan is the investment in the financial sector with specific focus on raising a $10m CHIPOPOLO Bond to be redeemed over 10 years. The funds raised through private placement will be used to support Football Development including grass root soccer across all the 10 provinces of the country,” he said.
FAM invited Kamanga to learn from the Zambian experience and also highlight the Malawi landscape.