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Home / Shooting from the hip: Burger must shut up and put his money where his mouth can be located

Shooting from the hip: Burger must shut up and put his money where his mouth can be located

2020-01-24  Carlos Kambaekwa

Shooting from the hip: Burger must shut up and put his money where his mouth can be located

Yours truly has been following with keen interest the nonsense spewed by Namibian rugby “icon” one Jacques Burger, unfairly castigating our rugby bosses at Lichtenstein-Strasse without providing tangible solutions.

It’s very funny when direct beneficiaries of the system that has benefitted them still have the temerity to point fingers at the victims of that very same apartheid system.

This reminds me of somebody who kills your parents and starts feeling pity for you or rather still blames you for being an orphan. I had the greatest admiration for the retired Saracens’ forward but his recent views boil down to typical arrogance, self-centeredness, punctuated by a misplaced entitlement mentality.
It’s an open secret that Namibian rugby has been struggling financially over the last couple of years with no proper sponsors in sight because potential backers are reluctant to place their trust in the hands of non-white rugby administrators. THAT’S THE NAKED REALITY !!!.

Is it perhaps an oversight that the very same Jacques Burger, who claims to have the interest of Namibian rugby at heart, did not raise his voice when Theo “Kwaaitjie” Coetzee took it upon his tiny shoulders to rechristen a black rugby opponent from a visiting South African team a “SWART BOBBEJAN” (“black baboon”) in his native lingo Afrikaans, which also happens to be Burger’s mother tongue. That’s called selective morality and hypocrisy of the highest order in the queen’s tongue.

It’s crystal clear that some blokes hate it when their own kith and kin are not in charge of proceedings, notably at the helm of institutions where they have accorded themselves a birthright, the oval ball game in particular. 

For someone who has made a decent fortune out of the game of rugby, one would have expected Burger to plough back the experience gained through his stint in the United Kingdom through the establishment of youth academies but he unfortunately chose to engage in dirty sport politics, in what can be easily interpreted as a desperate effort to maintain white supremacy. 

Show me any proof of what you have done for Namibian rugby since your retirement before you start pointing fingers in the direction of administrators operating on a shoestring budget.

  Integrity vs Eligibility 
So, as widely anticipated, outspoken NPL honcho Patrick Kauta failed to make the cut for the eagerly awaited Namibia Football Association (NFA) presidency. The author had no doubts that Kauta would be halted right in his tracks because of the NPL’s “indefinite suspension” – nothing more, nothing less.
However, the reason advanced for both presidential candidates Kauta and Cassius Moetie’s grounding invites more answers than questions. We need to distinguish between ineligibility and integrity – simply because those two phrases are miles apart in terms of correct interpretation.

Both gentlemen are well respected public figures and once they are wrongly paraded to have failed the required integrity test could have far-reaching repercussions on their squeaky clean reputation, integrity, let alone their respective chosen professions.

Hold your horses, before you crucify me – I’m not putting the blame on anyone for now but alas, media houses also have a moral duty to acquaint themselves with the actual facts on the ground and report accordingly without confusing the readers, viewers and listeners.

Unless the Namibian Football Association (NFA) Normalisation Committee (NC) were not acting in good faith, somebody in the corridors of Football House needs to convince me a touch better as to why they allowed ineligible candidates to enter the presidential race in the first place – only to subject them to embarrassment and unjustified humiliation.

Same also applies to the quartet of Frans Mbidi, Naftal Ngalangi, Mpasi Haingura and Michael Sithude, whose nomination was deemed ineligible. 

But why still go ahead and subject them to an integrity test? I’m just wondering.   
The mere fact that the nominees, strong presidential candidates for that matter, were welcomed with open arms to raise their hands for the presidential race, knowing that the potential candidates were ineligible for nomination, ultimately tarnishing their authentic integrity and reputation,  leaves a sting in the tail, so to speak. I rest my case. 


2020-01-24  Carlos Kambaekwa

Tags: Khomas
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