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Home / Football bosses must learn to pick someone’s brain
Football bosses must learn to pick someone’s brain
2016-12-09Staff Report 2 Whilst one must give the Namibia Football Association (NFA) president Frans Mbidi and his team a pat on the back for resurrecting the country’s oldest knockout competition, the NFA Cup, football bosses just never cease to amaze yours truly, to say the least. It goes beyond any comprehension as to how the NFA hierarchy applied their minds when they resolved to have the tourney started in February in the absence of club league activities. Quite often, one would hear football bosses bragging openly that the beautiful game of football is a much sought-after commodity and rightly so, but alas the product also needs to be respected and treated accordingly. Yours truly has it on good authority that the NFA’s new partners Debmarine Namibia before entering into an agreement to sponsor the country’s oldest football knockout tourney had decided they would only come on board if the domestic league were in full swing. For some strange reason, my somewhat oversized nostrils tell me a different tale and yours truly is inclined to follow his subconsciousness that something is definitely fishy. Truth be told, with all the uncertainty as to whether the country’s idling football flagship league would start – the scheduling of the NFA Cup is totally out of harmony with reality and needs to be revisited if we are to do any justice to football and the clubs in particular. For starters, clubs are currently not training because of insecurity and as it stands, many a club cannot sustain their employees in the absence of league football. Logic suggests that for any club to enter a knockout cup competition they must be playing regularly in a competitive environment. Another bone of contention is the prize money for the overall winner. It should be noted that yours truly has never and still does not entertain the slightest of intentions or whatsoever to call a spade a different name. With all due respect to the event organizers the N$500,000 for the victorious team is just a drop in the giant Atlantic Ocean – peanuts to put it bluntly. What puzzles the mind is that each and every time the NFA brings on board new sponsors for the national cup competition, the winning prize remains stagnated while the amount of money goes up every time. Here yours truly puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of club bosses, who have developed a nasty habit of always allowing themselves to be hopelessly undervalued and treated with very little respect, if any. As the real McCoy of the game, is it perhaps not time now for the clubs to start flexing their muscles and put their foot down. Yours truly felt embarrassed when it was revealed that the sponsors are the ones determining winning prizes for the participating teams – anyway these type of shenanigans can only happen in Namibian football. For the umpteenth time, football bosses have sold themselves hopelessly too short or else how would any sober-minded bloke describe such meaningless arrangements? I’m just asking. When will our football leaders learn not to give their financial backers too much leverage in negotiations? I’m again just asking. I rest my case. 2016-12-09Staff Report 2
