Rukoro opens up

The Namibia Football Association (NFA) is worried that the complications caused by the Namibia Premier League and the NFA Debmarine Cup will jeopardise the future of such competitions.

This comes after it was reported that a resolution for the clubs not to participate in the competition on 23 April was taken at the NPL's board of governors meeting.

However, about seven clubs in the league have confirmed that they do want to participate in the competition.

Speaking in an exclusive interview yesterday Rukoro said: “From where I am standing, all I can say is that the league is not making any effort to restart the football season.

“In fact, they are doing everything in their power to make sure there is a delay and that there is frustration in the whole football family.

“They are doing everything to make sure that the Debmarine Namibia Cup is frustrated to the extent that the sponsors must withdraw.

“All this intent will lead to a serious lack of confidence in football from corporate Namibia and this will have far-reaching consequences for football in the future.”

Namibian Sun understands that the reason why the NPL interim committee is calling for the postponement of the tournament is that several clubs do not have players after terminating their contracts last season.

The NPL committee and NFA met at the weekend to discuss the situation. They failed to reach agreement.

That led to another meeting this week, which for the first time included officials of the main sponsor, Debmarine Namibia.

Rukoro said the NPL interim committee failed to give any valid reasons why the tournament should be postponed.

“For us it is a very strange situation, because as the NFA, we have been hearing these things for most part of the year through allegations.

“No official letter was written to the NFA by a club or the league itself or the interim committee to inform the NFA that there were challenges with clubs' participation.

“We only came to know about these problems when we had that meeting between the NPL and the president of the NFA.

“During our meeting with the sponsor, the delegation representing the NPL could not also satisfy our and the sponsor's concern that even if the competition was to be postponed, how would we know that they would be ready after that?

“They could not say anything that suggested that they would be ready for a new date, even if the competition was to be postponed,” he said.

Rukoro insisted that the clubs had enough time to prepare for the tournament, given that it was launched in December and that the preliminary rounds had been played.

The long-serving NFA official also stressed that the dates proposed by the sponsor were important because they complied with the contract with Debmarine.

He felt it was impossible to postpone the tournament.

“Maybe individual NFA leaders can do nothing, but of course the legal framework of the NFA provides enough guidance for the NFA to deal with matters of this nature,” Rukoro warned.

Namibian Sun has also learned that there is a push for postponing the start of the Namibia Premier League.

The starting date of the NPL season is scheduled for 12 May in terms of the contract with the main sponsor, MTC.

Sources suggest that some powerful clubs in the league who are struggling to get their players together have been holding secret meetings to make sure that the league does not kick off on that date.

NPL interim management committee member Ranga Haikali declined to comment.

“Please speak to our communication officer, Evaristus Evaristus, concerning this matter,” Haikali said.

Evaristus could not be reached for comment.

JESSE JACKSON KAURAISA