Windhoek
The ongoing debacle on the immediate future of Namibian football took a dramatic turn with five of the sixteen clubs campaigning in the country’s topflight league, the Namibia Premier League (NPL), calling for an extraordinary congress.
The aggrieved football heavyweights are Black Africa, Orlando Pirates, Blue Waters, Citizens and league returnees Life Fighters.
The clubs are determined to see changes in the top echelons of the league structures and plan to file a motion of no confidence in the current NPL leadership at the requested congress slated for the 8th of next month.
New Era Sport is in possession of a copy of the letter addressed to the beleaguered NPL management from whom the clubs are seeking urgent answers.
Reliable sources say the aggrieved clubs have established that the initial budget tabled to the league sponsors MTC contains some irregularities, which led to a breakdown in communication.
They argue that the NPL hierarchy did not act in good faith during the initial negotiations and suspect the league administration of having deliberately inflated the budget.
At the centre of the storm is the league’s hardcore stance of demanding an additional N$9 million from the allocated N$15 million offered by MTC, which was stated in the request as a shortfall that might handicap the league to fulfill its mandated commitments.
However, MTC would have none of that and requested NPL to find the additional shortfall of N$9 million elsewhere.
Despite assurances by the NPL motor mouth chairman Johnny ‘JJD’ Doeseb that the league would find the additional money elsewhere within the prescribed period – NPL failed to meet the set deadline, thus obliging MTC to abruptly end any interest in further engagements with the cash-strapped league.
Insiders say Namibian football has reached a point of no redemption, adding that the current leadership has failed the nation and can no longer be trusted to administer the affairs of the country’s topflight football league.