The ensuing brouhaha in the aftermath of battered Namibia Premier League (NPL) chairman Johnny “JJD” Doeseb’s resignation, needs to be thoroughly analysed.
Surely, there’s more than meets the eye to JJD’s hasty decision to step down and only a fool would not conclude that the brother did the honourable thing by jumping before he was pushed.
As he rightfully stated, in his somewhat emotional resignation letter, a number of factors hastened JJD’s departure, which included ugly behind the scene maneuvering including backstabbing, badmouthing and character assassination by some of his trusted soldiers.
All this, happened while some faceless vultures were circling over the Namibia Football Association’s (NFA) Football House searching for a piece of space to squat.
It has been widely rumoured that potential sponsors were reluctant to release funds while bro “JJD” was still at the helm of the country’s flagship football league (NPL).
This is a damn childish or rather clumsy claim, which yours truly does not bite.
Fair enough, we have to hold the brother responsible for the mess in which domestic football currently finds itself in.
Alas, the clubs as bona fide affiliates must also man up and take collective responsibility for having given the league hierarchy complete carte blanche to run its operational functions.
From the time of Doeseb’s entrance into football’s leadership, the country’s flagship football league inadvertently became limited to one person – a situation that all the clubs generally seem to have found most agreeable.
The moment JJD, as newly elected chairman of the NPL took office, he made the bold gesture of donating a state of the art computer to each of the affiliated clubs, and in a show of gratitude they gave the brother a free hand to run the internal affairs of the league at his own discretion.
In all honesty, the gesture from the flamboyant brother was well meant, but let’s keep the old adage entrenched in our minds that you cannot bite the hand that feeds.
As it stands, the NPL is leaderless because the NFA statutes do not make provision for an ad hoc committee to run the operations of the league.
The bone of contention is the immediate modus operandi of those who have been burning the midnight oil behind the scenes to engineer bro JJD’s exit from football.
What plans have they put in place to allow potential candidates to raise their hands for possible nominations? I’m just asking.
Namibians must stand up and stop the rot, because the old fashioned manner of electing office bearers from clubs has failed us big time in the past. Is it perhaps now not time to amend the statutes and introduce a different methodology?
Namibia certainly does not lack suitably qualified candidates to take our football forward and what springs to mind is why can we not swallow our pride and request people with the appropriate knowledge and expertise to come and rescue our football from the current mess and start afresh.
Yours truly is referring to blokes such as Five Hochobeb, Steve Stephanus, Doc Naobeb, Ambassador Wilfred Emvula and Hendrik Dawid.
Other possible candidates include Bobby Sissing, Rudolph Jacobs, Siggy Frewer (or even recall former NFA president John Muinjo in an advisory role).
There are many more who could resurrect the ailing fortunes of our beautiful-turned-ugly game of football. I rest my case.