WINDHOEK – Chairperson of the Fifa-appointed Normalisation Committee for the Namibia Football Association (NFA) Hilda Basson-Namundjebo yesterday said the leadership of the Namibia Premier League (NPL) have until today to respond to their letter written about a week ago, wherein the Committee demanded that the NPL retracts all public statements it made regarding the start of the 2019/20 season and also about their stance on the heated relegation/promotion saga.
On the Monday, August 19, the Normalisation Committee wrote to the NPL’s headship demanding that the league retract all public statements/announcements made regarding the kick-off date for the 2019/20 season, which the NPL said might start within the first two weeks of next month.
The Normalisation Committee also demanded that the NPL reverse their decision of last month where the league declared a national dispute with the NFA and also ordered that NPL retract their statement that the league will only consist of 13 clubs as opposed to the customary 16 teams.
The Committee then gave the league five days to attend to their demands, saying if the league adheres to all their requests, they [Committee] will be ready to engage them in a round-table discussion to seek common solutions to problems faced by local football.
But as of Tuesday this week, the prescribed five days lapsed and still the NFA had not received any communication from the NPL, but speaking to New Era Sport yesterday, Basson-Namundjebo said she had again engaged the league to establish whether or not they will respond to their demands.
“I engaged them again to hear if they will respond to our letter or not so that we can know where we stand and take the necessary steps going forward. But the league’s chief executive officer indicated to me that they will be meeting today (yesterday) and a formal communication regarding their position will reach our office tomorrow (today). So, the NPL basically has until Thursday (today) to respond to our requests and failure from their side, we will take all necessary actions within our powers. So we will wait and see what happens on Thursday,” briefly said Basson-Namundjebo.
Efforts to get comment from NPL Chairman Patrick Kauta proved fruitless, as questions sent to him went unanswered at the time of going to print.