Money worries cloud football future

The future of at least 350 Namibian football players is hanging in the balance after the Namibia Premier League (NPL) failed to garner enough funds that would have activated a sponsorship for their activities this season.
With MTC as the NPL’s sponsor for the past 14 seasons, the league had laid out a budget of N$24 million per year as part of their negotiations for a new three-year contract with the telecommunications company.
However, MTC was only willing to fund the league with N$15 million per year and therefore requested the NPL to secure the additional N$9 million before it would commit to a new contract. The NPL was initially given until 31 July to secure the additional money but that date was later extended to 22 August. Still, the league was unable to secure a commitment from any potential sponsor, with NPL chairman Johnny Doeseb yesterday admitting that there is “nothing in writing”.
This means that MTC has now officially opted not to renew its sponsorship of the league.
“MTC has now officially withdrawn its conditional commitment of N$15 million per annum and N$45 million over three years,” MTC executive Tim Ekandjo said. He added that it would have been irresponsible for the company to allow the league to start with such a huge deficit.
“For too long the NPL has not been able to operate optimally when starting the league with such a huge deficit. When that is allowed, the clubs suffer, they cannot pay their players, they cannot cover operational expenses, important activities like the NPL Awards Ceremony cannot take place and, importantly, the quality of football suffers,” he said.

Sad state of affairs
This turn of events means that should the NPL fail to secure another sponsor, there will be no elite level football for the next season. This is a sad state of affairs, said Namibia Football Association (NFA) secretary-general Barry Rukoro, who lamented the poor funding of sport in the country.


“At national level sport is underfunded; it is not part of the national development plan. Corporates in this country are not obliged to fund sports,” he said.
“As a result we have now arrived at this moment, what I call a watershed moment, where we must look at ourselves and say, do our young people really deserve this kind of treatment; this kind of non-recognition from the nation itself?
“Do we really deserve this? Do our kids really deserve this? Are we really prepared to sit with all the evils that will emanate from non-activity of the premier league as opposed to availing this little bit of money and letting sport activity to continue.”

Ripple effect

Rukoro explained that the ripple effect of the lack of football being played at an elite league level is going to be disastrous.
“It will have a very big ripple effect. The first thing I can tell you, I’m already worried about the NPL staff.
“How will they be paid? And if they are not paid, who will do the work to keep this discussion and debate going?” he asked.
“Number two, what will happen to the 350 players employed by the league, plus coaches and medics and so on who supplement their lives through the Namibia Premier League?
“The third one, even those employees at the hotels where these teams stay to honour their league commitments over weekends will be affected. Maybe their bosses will realise that they don’t need them anymore.
“Even the petrol attendants who fuel the cars of the teams and the supporters that travel will be affected.
“And I think the most vulnerable people of all are the hawkers, the people who sell kapana every day at football matches; now they have nowhere to go… now they won’t be able to pay their bills, now they won’t be able to put bread on the table for their children.”
Rukoro added that the football stadiums will also feel the pinch as they will now be under-utilised.
“If the NPL matches are not taking place, the immediate consequence of that is that you’ll have a lot of white elephants standing all over the country,” he declared.

Club disarray

NPL clubs are seemingly at a loss as to how to proceed. Civics’ Tim Isaacs said it will be bad for his team, as he still has contracts with players to uphold.
“It is bad for us because there are contractual obligations to fulfil and players to pay,” he said.
Mali Ngarizemo, whose Young African team was recently promoted to the NPL, feels that he may as well give up.
“Maybe if someone comes and offers me N$100 000 for my NPL status and I might maybe want to do that,” he said, before adding that while the picture looks gloomy something positive may yet come of the debacle.
“Yes it is bad for us who have invested money in football, but… I think it is also a good message out there for the government or the corporates so that they can see the seriousness of these things, maybe they will react.
“Because it is funny that a Hage Geingob Cup, which is just over two days, had more than ten sponsors… yet a league that only needs N$9 million times three, no one can stand up and say here is the money.”

HECTOR MAWONGA