ONE cannot but be amazed, amused and flabbergasted by the fact that it seems business as usual in football following the damning verdict of the Namibia Football Association’s (NFA) Appeals Committee hearing into the complaint of African Stars Football Club and the Namibia Premier League.
Damning because the Appeals Committee is poignant in its verdict that the decision of the NPL, to among others, expel African Stars from football for two seasons, being 2014/2015 and the 2015/2016, be set aside in totality. This verdict is a clear and glaring indication how the NPL, and by extension the NFA, may not only have been misguided but grossly mistaken, misdirected and misjudging, ignorantly or wilfully, in its initial decision.
The rules and regulations of the NFA are clear as to what should be done in case of misconduct. This is all what is to the African Stars’ case. It must have been a charge of misconduct if the correct procedures were followed. And to give the NPL the benefit of the doubt that it may not have such rules and regulations, the rules and regulations of its mother body, the NFA are there as reference.
It is a matter of administrative law as to what procedures and rules the NPL may have followed and applied. As administrators of the NPL one would not have necessarily required administrators to have been law graduates but simply expected them to have been conversant with the general administrative law, under which the laws of natural justices fall. But the way they seem to have handled the matter in question speaks volumes about the glaring want of the requisite administrative acumen, if not a complete lack of basic knowledge of the very rules of the institution they represent.
In the first instance one could not understand how the very same clubs who might have a score or two to settle with African Stars, should have been invited and allowed to preside over the case of a fellow club they may have a score to settle with.
One rule of natural justice is that one cannot be a judge in his own cause. Yet clubs who were the very complainants against Stars, as members of the NPL, were the very ones allowed to be both complainant and judge, which means the rule of natural justice, that one cannot be both complainant and judge, or judge in his own cause, was flagrantly ignored and violated. One would have expected that those entrusted with the administration of football at the Premier League level, necessarily not being the most qualified legal minds, but given their stature, integrity if not status, to have had the necessary inclination in terms of experience, wisdom and good judgment. But if the handling of the African Stars case is anything to go by, one cannot help but conclude that Namibian football, at least at the level of the Premier League, does not seem to be in good hands in terms of the integrity of those running it. Not so much for their academic or professional qualification and integrity but in terms of their administrative acumen. Because if there is anything that they have revealed in the case of African Stars, is that they seem to have espoused little wisdom and lesser administrative and professional judgment. And as much the NFA cannot escape vicariously responsibility in this regard.
This is why it is astonishing in the aftermath of the Stars’ appeals verdict that it seems to be business as usual with football, and with those whose judgement in the Stars case seems to have been grossly wanting and mistaken, wilfully or not, but which seriously calls into question the ability, administratively or otherwise to competently run the affairs of one of the country’s favourite sports. Or is this a matter of “in the land of the blind the one eyed is King?” All the requisite considerations in terms of the NPL, and if you like of the NFA, rules and regulations as they may refer to making of complaints and subsequent procedures to be followed in this regard, among them a disciplinary hearing, were simply thrown out of the window. And one would like to believe not because the NPL administrators were ignorant of such rules and regulations, but because they simply chose to ignore them to push their own agenda whatever it may have been. And for that reason they have not only failed in their duty but similarly also have brought the name of football into disrepute. Such gross omission and de-commission as the NPL appears to have made itself guilty of surely warrants further action, be it by the NFA. While that should have been the case what one is seeing is that some of the very frontrunners in terms of steering the NPL ship, and who have revealed their serious lack of leadership qualities, have once again been entrusted with the affairs of football?
The decision of the NPL to suspend Stars may have been overruled by the Appeals Committee but it does not in any way mean the end of the matter. Surely it cannot be the end of the matter because the substantive matter and original matter of Stars’ complaint has far from been addressed and put to rest. This is whether Stars’ abandoned match with Orlando Pirates should have been fully replayed or not, and based on what rules and/or precedent?
There have been different reactions, postulations and interpretations of Stars’ recourse to the courts. One such detraction is that it should not have taken the matter to Namibian courts because it is against the Rules and Regulations of the International Football Federation (FIFA). But can Stars ordinarily be said to have taken football to court? Or to have taken a necessary pre-emptive action to compel the football authorities to give its complaint a due and proper hearing? It is also interesting that there are apparently international football laws that prevent a Namibian entity from seeking redress when it honestly deems aggrieved and necessary but cannot find the necessary redress through other requisite channels. I beg to differ with such an interpretation that may be denying any Namibian or Namibian entity recourse from the country’s justice system. But the long and short is that the saga between Stars and the NPL is far from done and dusted. Can Stars, and the football-loving fraternity honestly expect the NPL to continue to address this outstanding matter with the judiciousness that it deserves in view of the gross misapplication and misjudgement it has already made itself guilty of? Your guess is as good as mine!