There is still no relief for the salary arrears owed to the technical staff of Mali's national coaches. With the exception of the 5 months' salary arrears paid to the technical staff of the senior Eagles, following the players' strike and the payment of their bonuses on 23 March 2023, no other technical staff has received a penny, even though the state had announced since 2021 that the remaining salaries would be distributed over the 2022, 2023 and 2024 financial years.
Yet another case of unpaid wages in Mali. Mali's U23 national team will be taking part in the U23 AFCON in Morocco (24 June to 8 July). With 22 days to go before the competition, the technical staff is yet to receive a penny of their target bonuses, with the exception of Alou Badra Diallo, known as Conty. The latter received 5 months' salary as Eric Chelle's assistant.
No response from the National Assembly
On 10 April, the President of the Malian Association of Football Coaches (AMEFOOT) wrote to the President of Mali's Transitional National Council, asking him to make a plea on behalf of coaches whose salaries had been in arrears for months, if not years. AMEFOOT is still awaiting a response to its letter. "Coaches contract with the state through the Ministry of Youth and Sport, which is responsible for building citizenship, to manage the various categories of national teams, but these salaries are generally not paid for months or even years after their assignment," says Issa Kolon in his letter to Malick DIAW, President of the CNT, a copy of which was sent to Sport New Africa.
The most recent case is that of Soumaila Coulibaly, the coach of the Aigles Cadets. The former captain of Mali, who came 4th at the recent Africa Cup of Nations for the Under-17s, has still not received a penny since taking up his post more than 17 months ago. On Monday 05 June, he was in his field a few kilometres from the capital Bamako to do some field work ahead of preparations for the U17 World Cup, which Mali's cadets are due to play in November 2023.
Arrears of over a billion to be paid to football coaches
However, in November 2021, when he was the guest on the programme 90 minutes to convince, an initiative of the Association of Sports Journalists of Mali, the Minister of Youth and Sport, Mossa Ag Attaher, announced the beginning of relief for these arrears, which date back to 2019.
In order to find a lasting and appropriate response to the recurring backlog of salaries and allowances, the transitional authorities instructed Mali's Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Sport to work together to find a solution to this major concern for Malian sport. The concerted efforts of the two ministries resulted in the release of 400 million CFA francs, or 19.34% of the total unpaid, estimated at over 2 billion at the time, for a total of 27 coaches, including 16 for football and 11 for basketball. "The balance will be distributed over the 2022-2023 and 2024 financial years in accordance with the letter sent by the Ministry of the Economy and Finance," explained Sports Minister Mossa. He went on to say that the amount is estimated at 2,068,567,025 FCFA, broken down as follows per year. FCFA 107,373,877 for football in 2019; FCFA 1,022,970,002 for football and basketball in 2020; FCFA 938,223,146 of which FCFA 530,221,070 for football and FCFA 407,972,076 for basketball. That's 1,283,927,321 FCFA for football and 784,639,704 FCFA for basketball.
Coaches and staff still waiting for payment
To make good the delay in the payment of coaches' salaries and allow the development of sport, especially elite sport, in Mali, the Minister of Sport announced that the following appropriate measures would be taken. Firstly, all coaches will be hired on the basis of a contract of objectives and during the period of activity.
It is under these new measures that the contracts of the technical staff, Eric Chelle, Mamadou Demba Traoré's U20 team, Nouhoum Diané's CHAN team, Soumaila Coulibaly's U17 team and Mali's U23 team have all signed new contracts. "With the exception of the 5 months' salary received by Eric Chelle's staff, none of the other staff have received their salaries," Sport New Africa has learned.
Our attempts to understand this umpteenth delay in paying Mali's national coaches, despite the solutions announced by the Department of Sport, have been in vain. In the recent article dealing with the same problem, the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the only contractual employer of national coaches, explained the delays in payment by administrative lapses, the fault of a very long contract process between different centres.
