By Kuvee Kangueehi
OSHAKATI
The Namibia Football Association (NFA) and the South African Football Association (SAFA) last week signed a bilateral cooperation agreement in Johannesburg, South Africa. The NFA President John Muinjo and his counterpart Molefi Oliphant signed the agreement, which is the first of its kind.
Besides the agreement on mutual assistance in the technical areas of the game, the two associations have also agreed to assist in social responsibilities and SAFA is committed to assist the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund while the NFA will support the Sam Nujoma Trust.
Speaking to New Era on Saturday, Muinjo said the two associations have the intention to cooperate with each other for the benefit of football in general and more specifically for the continued growth of football in southern Africa.
He noted that the cooperation is based on mutual respect and awareness of the fact that there are strong historical relations between South Africa and Namibia. Muinjo was reluctant to divulge if the cooperation would focus on assistance in regard to coaching and educational process and the procedure to be adopted by the two associations.
The agreement also makes provisions for exchange programmes involving coaches, referees, and fitness coaches and medical professionals. This will enable increase in the knowledge base of individuals in the preparation of major international competitions at senior national teams, youth teams and national women teams. He added that with the big football tournaments, such as the Olympics in Beijing in 2008 and World Cup in 2010 in South Africa, Namibian football can learn more from South Africa in terms of nutrition, monitoring and testing, match analysis, demands of the game and tournament strategies.
He further added that the two associations would assist in exchange programmes, which are designed to benefit administrators within the two associations’ structures. It is envisaged that the programmes will advance administrative skills and levels of competency of the administrators in both associations. He added that the programme does not only target administrators in the associations, but could benefit administrators at regional level, leagues and clubs.
The cooperation agreement also encourages local teams to enter into agreements with South African clubs in order for the teams to benefit from each other. Although the contract does not specifically make reference to the 2010 World Cup, it is believed that through the agreement Namibian football will ultimately benefit from the competition.
The contract runs until August 2010.