Chancy Gondwe has highlighted the challenges that fame tends to bring for footballers having gone through the same while playing for Mamelodi Sundowns and Wits University in the 90's.
As gifted a midfielder as they will ever come, Gondwe made a mess of his career with an off the field lifestyle that bordered on lunacy.
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Yet, the Malawian has miraculously turned his life around from the man who frequented nightclubs for alcohol and women into a chaplain who also now works with The Flames.
"Fame can cheat you and make you think you will always remain a hit," Gondwe tells KickOff.
"People – both good and bad – will want to be close to you and if you can't manage that then you will be in trouble.
"I had supporters of Sundowns taking me to nightclubs and buying me alcohol.
"I was never going alone to all these places but with people that supported the team.
"We used to play at HM Pitje and after the game we used to go to the coloured area named Eersterust where there would be alcohol and meat.
"This was every week.
"To make matters worse, the league was sponsored by Castle Lager, so we always had beers in the changeroom.
"It was two crates of Castle or Hansa, and it was your choice whether you wanted to drink or not.
"It was a trap and at times you would have lost a game but me and my friends would take the beer into the bus.
"This thing backfired in the years to come.
"My prayer is to share my life story even with those at Sundowns because I know how to get into the hearts of players," says Gondwe.
"In Africa, we have been believing in these juju things for way too long, yet it is only God that can give us victory.
"Muti doesn't work but it is just a belief that messes up with our heads as Africans.
"When I played went to Zambia with a sing'anga (witch doctor) but lost the game 4-0 and had fights after the game.
"I was involved in muti because I was the captain but never believed in them and even up to now, I still don't understand why we used it.
"The challenge was that some of the guys that I played with were doing their own muti outside the team, so it made it difficult to discourage everyone.
"Luckily, nowadays these youngsters are a bit civilised and don't have much of a connection with muti rituals like what happened with us.
"With us, we were very close to the generation that believed in muti.
"The devil works with muti and is always there to make you confused.
"I played in South Africa and know of certain influential people who believed in muti even when it didn't help us.
"I have had to stop these boys stop the use of muti and chamba (marijuana) along with alcohol abuse.
"I cannot allow these youngsters to make the same mistakes that I made.
"You know that I messed up my life while playing for Sundowns by always being in Hillbrow for alcohol abuse and womanising purposes then ended up staying in shacks in Soweto and Alexandra.
"We also have a fame management program which seeks to reach out to all the clubs here in Malawi," says Gondwe.
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