Big Bullets

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Big Bullets
Full name	Big Bullets Football Club
Founded
Ground	Kamazu Stadium Blantyre, Malawi (Capacity 50,000)
Chairman	Hassam Jussab
League	Malawi Premiere Division
2006	3rd

Big Bullets is a Malawian football (soccer) club based in Blantyre and, by unconfirmed statistics, Malawi’s popular football club and has dominated the country’s major soccer league, Malawi Premiere Division, since it was formed in 1986.

During that period, the team has won eleven league titles, including the record setting seven titles whose sequence was broken by their sworn rivals, MTL Wanderers in 2006.

The history of the rivalry between MTL Wanderers and Big Bullets could be likened to that of Everton F.C. and Liverpool F.C. of the FA Premier League. Just like the latter, Big Bullets was formed out of MTL Wanderers in the late 1960s and have enjoyed more success than the ‘parent’ club.

While the Bullets have had unparalleled success on the field of play, the same cannot be said of their sponsorship. Bankrolled by the shoe making company, Bata Shoe Company, since its formation (and known as "Bata Bullets"), the people’s team (as it is popularly known in Malawi), faced uncertainty when that marriage was dissolved in 2000. The oil giant, Total Malawi, took over and renamed it Total Big Bullets, sponsoring the team for the next two years before the arrangement was terminated.

In 2003, the then Malawi’s president Bakili Muluzi adopted the team and renamed it Bakili Bullets. It was during this period that the team enjoyed one of its glamorous periods, reaching the lucrative group stages of CAF Champions League 2004 [1][2].

It was also during the same period that the club had a training camp in the United Kingdom in readiness for the CAF Champions League [3].

But it was a feat never to be repeated as Muluzi, now of power, opted out of the sponsorship arrangement in 2004. This left the team in a clutch, and in keeping with the acronym ‘BB’, the team’s faithful changed the name to Big Bullets. The team completed two seasons, 2005 and 2006, without sponsorship but in late December 2006, the people’s team secured a sponsorship deal with a South African-based but Malawi-owned company, Cifu Group owned by the Msiska twins, Fumu and Phaskani.