Many, many moons ago, world-renowned civil rights activist the great Martin Luther King Jr reminded us about the importance of unity when he said: “We must learn to live
together as brothers or be prepared to perish together as fools”.
When borrowing from the wise counsel of King Jr, I am reminded of our local football situation and the heavy responsibilities placed on the shoulders of the Fifa-appointed Normalisation Committee for the besieged Namibia Football Association (NFA).
I must applaud the bravery, courage and great work being done by the current Normalisation Committee to try and revive the ailing fortunes of domestic football. It is no easy task, but I must admit that they have covered good grounds in a short space of time. What impresses me the most is their willingness and maturity to invite all parties to the table for very difficult but highly important ice-breaking dialogues.
I can only imagine how difficult it has been for them to bring everybody under one roof, as I was at one point reliably informed that a certain self-entitled group was at first reluctant to sit around the table and have an honest eye-to-eye conversation with their counterparts.
It is no secret that members of the Namibia Premier League (NPL) and the alternative Namibia Premier Football League (NPFL) have not stood face-to-face for some time now, and that made things a bit difficult for the Normalisation Committee in the initial days of their assignment.
It now seems all parties are slowly but surely starting to find common grounds on the way forward for Namibian football.
I must applaud the Normalisation Committee for having the courage, bravery and steadfastness to adopt an open doors policy for all parties, despite some doomsayers insisting that the NPL should not be granted an opportunity to be heard or to hear the Normalisation Committee.
If the Normalisation Committee is to maintain the good progress we are witnessing, I advise that they should stubbornly continue to rely on their logic and levelheadedness, and not get carried away by self-centred emotions and external influence from the many worrywarts that have no solutions to our current football problems.
What Namibian football currently needs going forward is nothing but solutions and a new way of doing things.
As I have said before, the NFA needs to move away from the traditional setup of parenting leagues that are forever knocking on its doors with begging bowls, but no solutions.
The NFA is in no financial or administrative position, nor does it have the structural muscles to play guardian angel to leagues that are refusing to come up with plans to become self-sustainable in the long-term.
The NFA needs to start dealing with leagues that are willing to be part of the bigger picture, which will speak to the self-sustainability of the association and domestic football as a whole.
Until next time, sharp, sharp!!