Lesson From Chinani

How many of you, my Malawian readers, have been to or have ever heard about Chinani?

Chinani is a trade centre in Phalombe, unknown to most of Malawians. Yet in this corner, lies a big lesson in a small way. Chinani Football Team has a ground at the trade centre. The ground is fenced using locally available, cheap materials.

Now Chinani Football Team is good at the game and their ground is known locally as Chinani Stadium. Gate fee for games is K100 and at times the team makes over K200,000 from a game. Chinani Football Team is well organised and offers some lessons for all of us, especially teams that consider themselves big.

In some ways, Chinani Football Team has commercialised, although in what might be considered a small way.

We sometimes think that because super league teams have failed to commercialise then everybody else has failed too. We sometimes think that we urban folks are better organised than rural folks.

Not all times. Chinani is one example. And there are many teams like making money from local fenced grounds like Chinani.