WINDHOEK – The besieged Namibia Football Players Union (NAFPU), which has for the past few months hogged ear-piercing headlines ranging from maladministration to financial irregularities, appears to be swarming on its knees and on the very edge of closing its doors.
New Era Sport has established through reliable sources that the local football players’ union president Sylvester ‘Lolo’ Goraseb made an unceremonious announcement to the union’s staff members that NAFPU will be suspending all its operations for an unspecified period of time.
Although details pertaining the reasons why the union is closing its doors remain sketchy at this point, it is an open secret that NAFPU has in recently months been cornered by damning media reports, which brought forth the union’s inability to transparently account funds as well as other issues relating to maladministration.
In fact, just early last month, New Era Sport reported that NAFPU’s mother body Fédération Internationale des Associations de Footballeurs Professionnels (FIFPro) took a decision not to release any funding towards their Namibian affiliate after NAFPU was accused of submitting false or rather doctored financial information to FIFPro, which eventually led to NAFPU’s alleged embargo from FIFPro coffers.
Approached for comment yesterday, NAFPU Secretary General Olsen Kahiriri was reluctant to confirm or deny if the union had ceased to exist, saying that all queries around that issue should be passed to Goraseb.
“I really cannot comment on that issue, only the president will be in a better position to shed more light on what you are talking about. I’m really sorry, can’t comment,” Kahiriri briefly responded without giving much away.
On his part, Goraseb could also not openly confirm if the union had ceased its operations or not, saying the union is busy strategising.
“The union met with the newly Fifa-appointed Normalisation Committee on Friday and notes were exchanged and on Saturday, I called up an emergency board meeting where a decision was taken that the union needed to re-organise itself and be in line with the new football setup, especially when you look at it from the Fifa Normalisation Committee standpoint. In fact, we are engaging various stakeholders and we want to take a new direction as football is evolving globally and we have to follow suit. We will issue a formal statement in the status of NAFPU in due course,” said Goraseb, as he continued hopping around the questions.