FIFA President Gianni Infantino has met the Football Association of Malawi (FAM) President Walter Nyamilandu at FIFA’s Paris bureau and discussed the highly encouraging development of youth and women’s football in the African country.

Aided by FIFA Forward funds, the renovations to the FAM technical centre in Blantyre have given national teams improved facilities in which to prepare. The victory of the women’s national team in the COSAFA Women’s Championship last weekend – Malawi’s first such title – follows on the back of their runners-up finish two years earlier, and shows how ‘the Scorchers’ in particular have benefitted.

Many of that team are in their ‘teens, and youth development is also a particular focus of the FAM, which has ploughed Forward funding into grassroots football. The academy in Mzuzu is currently undergoing phased improvements, while Malawi is one of 100 member associations to have launched the FIFA Football for Schools project aimed at giving children skills for life as well as football.