National club champions Mimbulu and runners-up Bricks have qualified for next years Zone VI basketball club championship slated for Mozambique in November.
Basketball Association of Malawi (Basmal) vice president Jacob Chikoya said the two automatically qualified after impressing in the national championship last weekend at African Bible College.
Mimbulu, who are the reigning Central Zone Basketball (Cezobal) champions, defeated Bricks 67-60 in a thrilling final.
However, the two sides must raise over K1 million each to travel to Maputo for the Zone VI games.
“They have ample time to do fundraising activities to participate in Zone VI games,” Chikoya said.
Mimbulu senior player Daud Suleiman said they intend to participate in the event.
“We will involve Barlet Mafuleka (Cezobal vice president) to help us to raise funds,” he said.
Suleiman said they would like to compete in a lot of international tournaments.
“As Mimbulu we need to move a step up and not only look at Zone Six games but we will actively engage international games over the coming year to expose our players,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mafuleka said Cezobal will come up with various activities to help Mimbulu realise their plans.
Bricks forward Weluzani Chingota said they were gathering necessary information.
“We would like to participate. We just want to calculate how much it could cost us,” he said.
Chingota said by then Bricks would have rediscovered their top form.
Mimbulu received K100,000 for emerging champions while Bricks got K75,000.
Chidaya won the late James Gwaza memorial award.