Officials must clean up their act
It never rains but pours for Namibian football. The beleaguered game is still struggling to get sponsors on board for the Namibia Premier League (NPL), which has not been active for quite some time now. It is now almost six months after the NPL and MTC severed ties, putting the future of at least 350 footballers in the balance, and yet there is no prospect of a new sponsorship being announced.
Any football enthusiast will agree that Namibian football is in the doldrums and this is exacerbated by the continuous factional infighting among soccer bosses. The latest war of words between the under fire NPL chairperson Johnny Doeseb and NFA boss Frans Mbidi is testimony to this. The two football heavyweights are reportedly embroiled in an ugly spat, with Mbidi accused of holding meetings with NPL clubs executives in an attempt to engineer Doeseb's downfall.
The personal fight between the two football bosses does not augur well for the future of the local game at all.
Both the NFA and the NPL can ill-afford to have such a standoff.
The question of whether the NPL boss should step down or not, is debate for another day, but it is important that the current crop of football executives come up with plans to turn this state of affairs around.
With or without Doeseb, the NPL will always have to endure financial difficulties, and this is why serious interventions are needed – to lift the game out of this financial mess. The problems haunting football are well documented.
Ours is a football industry that is in a deep and demoralising place.
At this juncture it is advisable that all warring factions come together and map the way forward.
One hopes that cooler heads will prevail and that soon everything will calm down in the interests of our players and other stakeholders who have not taken part in any football activity for the last six months or so.
Any football enthusiast will agree that Namibian football is in the doldrums and this is exacerbated by the continuous factional infighting among soccer bosses. The latest war of words between the under fire NPL chairperson Johnny Doeseb and NFA boss Frans Mbidi is testimony to this. The two football heavyweights are reportedly embroiled in an ugly spat, with Mbidi accused of holding meetings with NPL clubs executives in an attempt to engineer Doeseb's downfall.
The personal fight between the two football bosses does not augur well for the future of the local game at all.
Both the NFA and the NPL can ill-afford to have such a standoff.
The question of whether the NPL boss should step down or not, is debate for another day, but it is important that the current crop of football executives come up with plans to turn this state of affairs around.
With or without Doeseb, the NPL will always have to endure financial difficulties, and this is why serious interventions are needed – to lift the game out of this financial mess. The problems haunting football are well documented.
Ours is a football industry that is in a deep and demoralising place.
At this juncture it is advisable that all warring factions come together and map the way forward.
One hopes that cooler heads will prevail and that soon everything will calm down in the interests of our players and other stakeholders who have not taken part in any football activity for the last six months or so.
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Namibian Sun
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