WINDHOEK – Having recently announced that he won’t be gunning for a 3rd term as president of the Namibia Football Association (NFA), John Muinjo is oozing confidence and insists he has nothing but a great story to tell about his eight-year tenure at the helm of the NFA.
In an interview with New Era Sport yesterday, Muinjo who was elected NFA president in 2006 said his achievements as head of Namibian football and the overall standard of the game in the country are there for all to see and that he has nothing to prove to the doubting Thomases.
According to Muinjo, under his leadership the country has made commendable inroads in global football, which earned the association recognition and praise from Fifa for its genuine drive to promote and develop women’s football across all age groups, while in 2012 Namibia was ranked as the number one country in Africa that fully implements all Fifa projects without any calamity, followed by Zambia and Morocco in third place.
“Also under my leadership the NFA has managed to consolidate and secure solid relationships with government. As for women’s football, we have gone the extra mile in strengthening our Women’s Desk with highly skilled and knowledgeable staff that have managed to deliver the desired results.”
Other notable achievements, Muinjo says, were Namibia hosting the 2006 Women Football Seminar, the 2007 COSAFA U/17 youth competition and signing a memorandum of agreement with the Polytechnic of Namibia for football education.
Muinjo said he was solely instrumental in convincing the NPL to take up residence at Football House, a move that financially emancipated the NPL, adding that the NFA itself is also financially stable.
“In terms of sponsors, I have done the best I could to draw more sponsors to fund various NFA projects and such sponsors are Spar Otjiwarongo who sponsor the Galz & Goals girls league and also brought in the likes of Puma and Namibia Breweries Limited (NBL) to sponsor the Brave Warriors. I have also managed to establish fruitful relationships with Bidvest Namibia and Scorpion Zinc and today we have the Bidvest Cup and the Scorpion Zinc U/17 Cup,” boasted Muinjo.
Another milestone for the NFA and Namibian football at large was the country staging its first ever CAF Women’s Championship a few weeks ago, a feat Muinjo says came about because of the NFA’s good relations with partners such as Fifa, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and the Council of Southern African Football Associations (COSAFA).
However, he admitted that it was not a smooth sail as there are still major stumbling blocks such as the lack of sponsors for the regional leagues, a problem he says remains a big headache for the NFA and which will persist if not urgently addressed.