African Stars and Unam will kick off premiership football Sunday for the first time since 2019.
Under the new sponsor, Debmarine Namibia, the first premiership match for the 2022/2023 season will take place at the Dr Hage Geingob rugby stadium.
African Stars coach Mervin Mbakera expressed excitement about the start of football, saying it is a moment the nation has been waiting for.
“This is a special moment for Namibia; it’s something that the whole football fraternity has waited for since 2019, and I am so happy that we will be getting straight into business this Sunday,” he told New Era Sport.
In terms of the team’s readiness, the coach said they have had a couple of pre-season matches and trained for more than a month.
“The team looks good and ready for Sunday. We have had various pre-season tournaments, which I believe gave us the much-needed game time to gain our fitness level,” he said.
Stars ended as runners-up to winners Black Africa at the end of the 2018/2019 season.
Unam coach Ronnie Kanalelo said his charges are equally ready for Sunday’s encounter, despite their players’ fitness level not being at the desired level.
“We trained for a month and had various games where we were testing our players. It showed that we are good, although we are still working on our fitness level. But that will happen with time,” he said.
Debmarine Namibia last week committed N$13 million towards the top-flight league, with N$8 000 000 allocated to clubs as start-up grants, while prize money amounts to N$2 580 000.
Namibian football came to a standstill at the end of the 2018-2019 season after the Namibia Premier League refused to adhere to a Namibia Football Association (NFA) instruction not to relegate Civics and Orlando Pirates at the end of that season along with Young African.
This led to protracted legal squabbles between the NFA and NPL leadership in the High Court, then Supreme Court and later the Court for Arbitration in Sport in Switzerland.
The impasse saw MTC withdraw its premier league sponsorship in July 2020 when matters were still not resolved.
The match starts at 17h00, and gates open at 13h00.
Entry costs N$30.