WINDHOEK – Gobabis-based club Young African FC, which was demoted by the Namibia Premier League (NPL) last month, yesterday launched an urgent application with the High Court demanding that the club be restored back into the league until internal remedial structures are set up by the Namibia Football Association (NFA), which is the NPL’s mother body.
Young African was found guilty by the league’s Disciplinary Committee for registering and using Zimbabwean import Tapiwa Simon Musekiwa with fake identity documents last season and the club was consequently demoted from the league and additionally received a N$50 000 fine.
In their search for recourse, African sought to overturn the Disciplinary Committee’s decision and as required by the NPL constitution, they submitted their appeal with the NFA but their submission has yielded zero results as the besieged NFA does not have any judicial committees in place at the moment, including the all-important Appeals Committee which was to hear the club’s grievances.
As a result, African through its lawyers Murorua Kurtz Kasper (MKK) Inc. have since been in pursuit of justice and yesterday officially launched an urgent application with the Windhoek High Court seeking interim relief from the court, which would hopefully see the club being granted its full NPL status and rights while the NFA is busy putting its house in order by reestablishing all relevant judicial structures.
Since the exit of the previous executive committee, the embattled NFA has been a house in serious shambles with no executive and judicial committees in place and is currently under the temporary upkeep of the recently-appointed FIFA Normalisation Committee, but the Normalisation Committee is yet to establish interim judicial structures to entertain cases of such nature.
African’s lawyers copied the NPL and all its 15 member clubs, as well as members of the league’s Disciplinary Committee and the NFA’s secretary-general as respondents in the matter.
Speaking to New Era Sport late yesterday, Gilroy Kasper from Murorua Kurtz Kasper (MKK) Inc. said: “The club continues to be disadvantaged by the non-existence of judicial structures within the local football fraternity and what we are saying is that the club must be reinstated back into the league until the NFA has its house in order. This club has more than 40 employees on its books and they have since been robbed of income due to the demotion of the team, and their future remains bleak as there are no structures for the club to launch an appeal. So we hope the court will grant us interim relief and we hope to have feedback by Thursday.”
The Disciplinary Committee’s decision has not only affected African, but other clubs such as relegated Young Chiefs are also seeking answers on their immediate future as African’s demotion was to pave way for the promotion of Chiefs, if the NPL moves ahead to carry out the instructions of the Disciplinary Committee that said: “Young African FC forfeits points for all the matches that the player played under the fraudulent cloud and that the points be deducted that were gained by Young African FC and must be awarded to the opponents whom they were playing against for each match.”
But the NPL leadership is yet to carry out the Disciplinary Committee’s instructions and Chiefs, joined by Civics and Tigers, have since been demanding answers from the league.