Congrats, Ricardo Mannetti

Jesse Jackson KauraisaFriday was a very special and emotional moment for me as I witnessed the launch of former Brave Warriors coach Ricardo Mannetti’s magazine.The former Brave Warriors coach launched his magazine titled ‘A decade of Football’, which is sponsored by Standard Bank Namibia.The book details some of the greatest football achievements attained between 2010 and 2020.Many would love to hear what criticism I have at the moment, but I will reserve that for later, if there is any.As for now, allow me to celebrate something which I believe was a brilliant idea in a time where our football needs to be professionalised.This magazine comes in a time that the burden of reviving our football rests on every individual who can contribute towards the dream of making the game commercially strong.It would be unfair to congratulate only Mannetti because I believe he did not do this alone and I therefore laud the authors and everyone who played a role in the editorial. It is so hard to get stats or information about players and historic moments of our football. Many times, we rely on foreign information to keep track of our own history.It was really about time that we celebrated our own achievements in a way we best can.Yes, the magazine could have covered the years before 2010, but I believe this is a good start, given that we expect more books to follow from different authors.The magazine has to motivate many of us to write books that can inform the nation and the world what we are made of.It is this kind of magazine that ensures that our heroes and heroines in the sport fraternity do not go unnoticed. A fortnight ago I wrote about how we need to commercialise football and make it an attractive brand.In my column I wrote that Namibian football could become a very expensive brand if the right tools were used to market the game. There has been so much talk about how commercial football has become in other parts of the world.A good example is our neighbour South Africa, which has been marketing the game so well, with players, teams and coaches making millions of dollars.It is for this reason I believe that Ricardo Mannetti’s magazine is setting the tone towards that as well.Let us not forget to thank Standard Namibia for sponsoring this magazine and making sure that the idea became a reality.I remember how much we have written about how important it is to have corporate Namibia on board as far as supporting the brand of football is concerned.This is why I also have not thanked all other companies that advertised in the magazine as it made the publishing of this book possible.Allow me to laud MTC, DebMarine Namibia, Unicef, Ministry of Sports, FNB Namibia, juxtapose design, Esh- Ham, Namibia Fish Consumption Promotion Trust, HopSol, Deep Sea Consolidated Investments, NDTC for supporting the initiative.I hope the involvement of this companies will actually set the tone for other corporate companies to support similar initiatives and football in general. jesse@namibiansun.com

Congrats, Ricardo Mannetti

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Namibian Sun 2025-09-19

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Congrats, Ricardo Mannetti

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Namibian Sun 2025-09-19

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