EDITORIAL: Politicians must stay quiet on Afcon

It’s astonishing how politicians squeeze themselves into the limelight to congratulate the Brave Warriors in good times. Or how they pepper over the wounds of the team’s defeats with lame consolatory words. But after the curtain has come down on big events like the ongoing African Cup of Nations (Afcon), politicians crawl back to their default modes and seek relevance elsewhere. They sell us dreams that they understand and appreciate football in its entirety – not just during the 90 minutes of play – but that cannot be further from the truth.

How dare they climb on pedestals to shout congratulatory messages from a country that has no soccer stadiums? From where do they derive the moral authority to comment on football, when they should be hiding under rocks in shame?

It has been three years since the country had a functioning, CAF-accredited stadium. Three years, not months. Namibians have been robbed of the joy of watching their national team play at home. This is a crisis of monumental proportions, but politicians think ‘it’s just soccer’.

Money was allocated back in 2022 already to fix Independence Stadium. In 2024, that facility remains a graveyard, only fit to host sungura concerts. What did we do for politicians to hate us this much? The Afcon hype will soon die down and we’ll be back to our miserable selves again.