Moroka Swallows striker Gabadinho Mhango's exclusion from the Malawi squad participating in the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers has come as a surprise after his good form in the DStv Premiership, and now KickOff has uncovered the reason.
Mhango did not have a great start to the season in front of goal but finished strongly, despite the internal issues and destabilization of the squad in December last year, netting seven goals in the league, more than half of which came in the last two months.
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It therefore came as a surprise when he was omitted from the Flames squad scheduled to play in World Cup qualifiers against Sao Tome and Principe and Equatorial Guinea.
This website did some digging...
According to a high-ranking source within the Malawian Football Association, the 31-year-old was excluded on "disciplinary grounds".
Indications are that head coach Patrick Mabedi is still not over the incident in the previous squad announcement in November last year, where Mhango missed a flight from the OR Tambo International Airport to Ethiopia, where he was supposed to link up with some of his compatriots on another scheduled flight to Liberia in a World Cup qualifier match.
At the time, Mabedi told Soccer Laduma that he will only welcome 'Gaba' back into the squad if he apologizes to the technical team and the nation for "letting them down".
The ex-Kaizer Chiefs captain also revealed that Mhango did not obey the instructions of the technical team after they asked him to do a recovery session online and send it back to them, an instruction that was seemingly ignored by the star player.
Mabedi, crucially, strongly felt that the veteran forward missed his flight out of negligence.
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Malawi thrashed Sao Tome and Principe 3-1 last Thursday but narrowly lost 1-0 to Equatorial Guinea in their second qualifier match on Monday, as they slipped down to fourth in Group H, four points behind leaders Tunisia.
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