Minister of Sport, Youth and National Service, Agnes Tjongarero has called on officials and coaches working in the sporting sector to stop infighting for the athletes’ best interests.

In a recent interview with Nampa, the sports minister said Namibia has talented athletes, but their potential is hampered by the infighting created by those administering sports.

“If Namibians, in general, can learn to hold hands and work together for the good of the athletes, we will do better and go far. We like fighting, and the fighting is breaking down the athletes,” she said.

Tjongarero added that the current infighting reported amongst coaches and administrators in the different sporting sectors affects the morale of other officials and those of the athletes.

“We have the best athletes who just need that little push to excel, but coaches and administrators are busy fighting each other, and these fights are all about ‘he is what’ or ‘she is what’. We need to stop this and start working as a unit to grow our sporting sector,” Tjongarero said.

For the past three years, football infighting in Namibia has seen the International Federation of Association Football (Fifa) institute the normalisation committee twice with the single purpose of stabilising or normalising football affairs, while other sporting codes like athletics have seen coaches having infights over athletes that move from one club to another, to mention a few.

In her interview, Tjongarero also said there has been little development taking place with athletes’ development, and the time is now for new talent to be identified.

“In the past, we had athletes competing for gold in athletics, especially at the Paralympics, but as time has gone by, these athletes are getting older. We are not developing young athletes. Consequently, we will soon start competing for silver medals and downgrade to bronze instead of the gold medals we are used to,” she said.

Tjongarero stated that for the sports sector to grow, people’s differences must be put aside and focus directed on developing the games and the athletes.

– Nampa