Dethroned Namibian champions, Katutura glamour football club African Stars are not resting on their laurels and have started in earnest to roll up their sleeves for the upcoming football season in what can be rightly interpreted as an act of intent to reclaim the coveted MTC Premiership title.

Having been narrowly pipped at the post by eternal rival Black Africa for the country’s biggest prize, “Starlile” have put shoulder to the wheel roping in the services of Ghanaian coach Muhammed Gargo to take the team through the ropes.

The club have signed new players and let go of what they thought were deadwood or surplus to requirements in football terms. And while such a move should be commended and applauded, the author is left flabbergasted, leaving me a bone to pick, with the fashion in which the fairly unknown Ghanaian mentor was ushered into the Reds’ nest.

Multiple title-winning coach Bobby Samaria’s position has not been properly clarified before the appointment of his successor. This is exactly where the Katutura glamour football club is found wanting in the crucial area of transparency and professionalism, so to speak.

Word has been doing the rounds that Samaria and the Reds’ serial on and off romance was becoming a bit frosty after the club failed to retain the league title notwithstanding a damn good run in the Caf Club Champions League preliminaries, where the Katutura giants were marginally eliminated by Moroccan giants Raja Cassablanca, having stretched the old time campaigners to the limit in both legs. 
The Reds recorded arguably one of the best results ever in history in a competition where Namibian clubs have struggled to make any sufficient impact – let alone negotiate their way past the two legged preliminary round.

Now, can somebody please enlighten me, what’s so difficult for football clubs to do things the right way when it comes to parting ways with their respective employees, be it members of the technical staff or playing personnel? I’m just wondering.

When departed coach Robert Nauseb was brought in to take the reins at the club, he was paraded as the new messiah, but when things did not exactly work out as planned, the brother was silently or rather brutally ushered through the exit door via a text message – certainly a very uncool exercise, so to speak. 
Yours truly has noticed this nauseating practice of local clubs abusing the media for their own advantage and hidden agendas, while not sharing vital information for public consumption. Let’s stick to internationally standard practices when it comes to players and coaches movements or any other developments within the structures of the clubs. 

This should be done via press conferences to allow the media to file questions for public interest. On the positive side, yours truly is obliged by morals to doff his korrie for Stars’ new modus operandi off the field since the arrival of my homeboy Kanjuu “Gazza” Hei.

I would therefore like to extend my humble plea to other clubs in the league to follow suit and take a leaf out of Stars’ book.

Football dynamics have taken another dimension as the game has become a major source of income and should be treated with a certain measure of respect. Football is an underrated industry and has the capacity to reduce poverty and create employment opportunities for the youth whilst keeping them away from the evils of society.   

All the 16 football clubs campaigning in the country’s topflight league should be obliged to have youth academies in place and appoint blokes with appropriate knowledge and the required expertise to monitor the successful implementation of their blueprints and other such programmes.

Stars have recently called into life an under-19 football team as a nursery organ for the senior team – surely a move in the right direction because our football has gravely stagnated because of insufficient development structures and youth academies. I rest my case.