In what can be easily interpreted as a last-ditch attempt to rescue the ailing fortunes of domestic football, it has now emerged that our football bosses have come up with a formula that would see football start very soon.
It has been apparently proposed that the trident of relegation teams from the country’s flagship football league the MTC Premiership from the 2016/2017 season – Rundu Chiefs, Chief Santos and Young Chiefs – be pooled alongside three teams dropped from the 2017/2018 Premier League term, namely, Civics, Orlando Pirates and Young African to determine the three teams for promotion to the elite league.
Fair enough, this unfamiliar suggestion might sound like the most suitable solution but such an undertaking infringes upon the right and integrity of all football teams in the regional division one streams, including Touch & Go, United Stars and many others, so to speak.
Yours truly still maintains that the above-mentioned relegated six teams from the NPL should enjoy the same status as all the other teams campaigning in the three regional first division leagues. We just can’t sideline them from the envisaged promotional play-offs.
Obviously there are vicious attempts from certain quarters by some ‘self-styled influential’ individuals desperate to ‘wheelbarrow’ some fallen heavyweights into the scheme of things. Not that yours truly has any qualms about the proposed play-offs – the bone of contention is the content.
Excluding the other teams from the planned promotional play-offs will be a grave travesty of justice and could yield far-reaching unsustainable repercussions.
The Ghost of Young African is haunting
As it stands, yours truly just can’t put his finger on the pulse as to how football officials will bring closure to the marathon Young African’s highly questionable or rather improperly handled suspension. The Gobabis outfit filed an appeal upon its grounding but their plea to be reinstated while the appeal is pending, fell on deaf ears.
All sorts of laughable lame excuses have been advanced as to why the appeal could not be entertained, ostensibly because of the conspicuous absence of an appeal board, which brings one to conclude that our football is administered like some nil-star shebeen holed up in the notorious Havana informal settlement.
It’s like running a relay only to realise that there are no sprinters lined up for the home straight (final leg) to complete the race or worse still, constructing prisons without a functional judicial system in place.
I’m shivering like a fired-up “boere orkes” to think what would happen should Young African win its appeal in the likelihood on technicalities.
Truth be told, if yours truly was in the shoes of the NPL, I would fight tooth and nail to prevent that appeal seeing the light of the day, considering the possible embarrassment, compensation in retrospective monthly grants, loss of income and dozens of missed monetary perks.
My sincere advice to my learned colleagues in blue suits in the corridors of Football House in Katutura is to take a breather and reverse the methodology of this hastily arranged promotional play-offs.
Remember, an injury to one is an injury to all – you can’t please some and leave others to fend for themselves, leaving them with long tears rolling down their weary faces. I rest my case.