WINDHOEK – Gobabis club Young African FC’s urgent application recently launched with the Windhoek High Court seeking interim relief to have the demoted club reinstated into the Namibia Premier League (NPL), was yesterday struck from the roll with costs.

It was the club’s second attempt to seek relief with the court, after their first urgent application was removed from the roll due to technicalities. The club’s lawyers remedied the said technicalities in their first application and relaunched with the same court on Friday and the matter was then postponed to yesterday, which saw the application again being struck off the roll on technicalities.

“Having heard Mr Kasper, on behalf of the applicant and Mr Narib for the first respondent, Mr Muhongo for the second respondent and having read the Application and other documents filed of record in respect of case number HC-MD-CIV-MOT-GEN-2019/00050: It is hereby ordered that: 1. The matter is struck from the roll with costs, on account of no founding affidavit in support of notice of motion, which non-compliance is not condoned. 2. The matter is regarded as finalized,” reads yesterday court documents.

Speaking to the club’s chairman Mali Ngarizemo on the way forward, he said they will not be challenging the court’s decision to struck their case off the roll but said they will now focus on getting their case resolved with the Namibia Football Association (NFA), who last week wrote to the club to inform them that an Appeals Committee will soon be put in place to hear their case.

“For now we will not appeal the court decision as we want to give room and consideration to the letter we received from NFA last week. In fact, when we got the letter we were also contemplating to withdraw our case, as communication from NFA on the way forward is what triggered our urgent application with the courts. So with NFA letter promising to give our case the highest consideration it deserves, I think it’s also only fair to give them (NFA) a chance to put up an Appeals Committee and see how things go. So we will not appeal for now. Let’s wait and see how things go with NFA,” said Ngarizemo.

In a letter dated 6 March 2019, also seen by New Era Sport, vice-chairperson of the Fifa-appointed Normalisation Committee for NFA, Franco Cosmos wrote to the club’s lawyers informing them of NFA’s decision to put up an Appeals Committee that will urgently deal with Young African’s protracted case.

“We acknowledge receipt of your clients appeal application to the Namibia Football Association (NFA) and your letter dated 28 February 2019. We acknowledge receipt of the appeal application in terms of Article 13 of the NFA Disciplinary code. Your client’s appeal application is in order and receiving our highest consideration. Regrettably, we don’t have an Appeals Committee to hear your client’s matter but we are busy composing an Appeals Committee to hear your client’s matter, please bear with us. We will notify you as soon as the Appeals Committee is composed and when are ready to hear your client’s appeal application,” reads Cosmos’ letter written to the club’s lawyers MKK Incorporated.