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Home / We can’t keep a straight face while things are falling apart
We can’t keep a straight face while things are falling apart
2017-01-06Staff Report 2 Let me first kick off by doffing my korrie for the incumbent president of the Namibia Football Association (NFA), Herr Frans Mbidi, on his election to the plum position of COSAFA vice president. Well, yours truly trusts and hopes Mbidi’s election to that position will ultimately bear fruit for the ailing fortunes of the association that gifted him that particular honour and lifted him to such great heights within a relatively short period of time since his arrival in the dog-eat-dog business of football administration. Needless to remind you, my dear readers, that Namibian football is in turmoil and this is certainly not because of Mbidi and his soldiers at Football House. The buck stops with the dozing leadership of the country’s flagship league, the Namibia Premier League (NPL). As custodians of domestic football, it is incumbent on Mbidi and his executive within the NFA to roll up their sleeves and intervene in this seemingly neverending circus that seriously threatens to derail the overall progress of the game. Alternatively, the immediate future of many young men whose livelihoods depend entirely on playing the beautiful game of football is at stake here and we cannot just sit with arms folded and pretend as if nothing serious is happening on our doorstep. We should under no circumstances allow people to mess up with the future of others, notably unsuspecting and innocent young athletes eking a living out of football. In any other proper structures, all the affected clubs and their subjects campaigning in the NPL would have stood a strong chance in any labour court to drag the league to court and sue for loss of income. The self-imposed or rather enforced sabbatical of league activities has not only affected the clubs financially stressed, but has also put enormous emotional strain on the players, who are left penniless and frustrated. The affected footballers have not only lost out on income, but their dignity and public standing has been gravely impaired, as well. As a united people and committed individuals, we must learn to remove elected leaders from power when they become arrogant and reckless in their manner of executing their functions or irrelevant. The damage caused by the NPL leadership as a result of its dismal failure to solicit sponsorship for the league is without an iota of doubt irreparable and the wounds would only be healed if the current leadership vacates office without further delay to allow fresh minds to take over the reigns. Period! NRU must pronounce itself on Kwaaitjie’s racial slur Wanderers rugby club proved bold enough to haul the racist, Theo Coetzee, aka ‘Kwaaitjie’ before a disciplinary hearing and the naughty player was subsequently suspended for his unbecoming behaviour, which brought the game of domestic rugby in disrepute, but the country’s governing rugby body, the NRU, is yet top pronounce itself on the ugly debacle. NRU’s surprising or rather shocking silence on this nauseating matter can be and rightly so interpreted as condoning Kwaaitjie’s racial slur and given the severity of the offense – this is tantamount to complicity and very much against the spirit of reconciliation, so to speak. To my colleagues in the comfort of their blue suits at Lichtenstein Strasse, you can rest assured, until such time NRU pronounces itself on this issue, yours truly will continue to haunt you in pursuit of justice. I rest my case. 2017-01-06Staff Report 2
