Windhoek
Lady Luck seems to have turned her back on the country’s flagship football league, the MTC Namibia Premiership (NPL).
In the latest twist of events, New Era Sport has learned from reliable sources that the league has been dealt a further blow after both their potential additional sponsors, Multichoice Supersport and the Namibia Sports Commission (NSC), turned down the NPL’s last-ditch request for a N$9 million bailout.
The immediate future of domestic football has now been thrown into total turmoil, as the league’s trusted sponsors, MTC, recently tabled an ultimatum to league authorities to find an additional N$9 million dollar sponsorship elsewhere before it signs a new sponsorship deal.
This had left egg-faced league officials scrambling around in search of stop-gap measures, which ultimately resulted in a short visit to the NSC for a bailout, before the same request was extended beyond the Orange River.
However, the eleventh hour requests were summarily turned down as a result of tough economic challenges and time constraints, with Supersport citing short notice as the major stumbling block. To add salt to the wound, the Namibian government – through the NSC – made it clear that the asking amount has not been budgeted for.
In the meantime NPL chairman Johnny Doeseb remains upbeat, saying the NPL will continue to exhaust every available avenue in the best interest of football fans and the players in particular, who make a living out of the beautiful game.