SHOOTING FROM THE HIP
Carlso Kambaekwa
Why should we as football lovers sit back and meekly accept what is clearly preventable before it gets too late?
Okay, yours truly is referring to the self-inflicted demise of coastal glamour football club and former league champions Blue Waters, aka “the Beautiful Birds” who appear to have taken permanent residence in the basement of the country’s elite league since the start of the 2007/2008 soccer season.
With Dawid Snewe’s men in uniform quickly coming to terms with the rigours of top-flight football, Blue Waters might find it a thorny journey to waggle itself out of troubled waters and could join Chief Santos in the lower ranks of domestic football and possibly follow in the footsteps of cross-town rivals Explorer Eleven and Namib Woestyn.
The “Desert Boys” have suddenly resurfaced after the controversial takeover of Bee Bob Brothers’ franchise at the beginning of the current season and are now campaigning in the Nationwide Division One League in a desperate bid to resurrect the ailing fortunes of the once untouchable Kuisebmond-based green and gold outfit.
So, are we to remain arms-folded and wait for a miracle to happen while stray dogs are having a whale of a meal on one of the country’s most prized assets in domestic football ?.
What happened to all the hype and big plans that were boastfully outlined at the start of th season to take the coastal outfit to another level – let us face reality, the game of football has changed dramatically from a mere recreation pastime to a livelihood nowadays.
Forget about the days of patriotism and blind loyalty – in modern football, be it at amateur or professional level, moolah does the talk while everything else walks, my learned brothers, period!
Needless to remind those ambitious would-be club bosses that it’s not necessarily the size of the executive and their hordes of henchmen that bring success to any football team with ambition, but the deepness of your pockets that could potentially keep the players’ hunger at bay, unless one wants to cannibalize his or her own business.
Who is Fooling Who?
Yours truly has always and still maintains there is a cartel in the top echelon of our football setup and my suspicion seemed to have been confirmed, though not officially by the recent war of words that erupted between Civics’ owner-coach Helmuth Sharnowsky and the powers that be at Soccer House.
The Civics mentor is furious over the Association’s tortoise-paced handling of entries for possible participation in the lucrative annual African Club Champions League competition.
Sharnowsky claimed his club was only furnished with the application form a day before the deadline which was end of November 2007, while entries were forwarded to the mother body by CAF way back in May 2007.
Last year’s runnes-up Oshakati City have been made to lose out on a possible ideal opportunity to conquer Africa in the event of Civics’ apparent withdrawal as claimed by football authorities.
One thing yours truly has come to live with is the endless amount of well-structured untruths and twisted tales by football administrators even on irrelevant matters where a simple acknowledgement of human error would have easily settled the dust and decrease the provoked anger in hardened journos.
Slippery Boxing
Officials
It’s quite mind-boggling how Sports journos are constantly subjected to all sorts of hide and seek games by incompetent or rather lazy sport administrators, to put it frankly.
Some of us are chasing daily deadlines and find it extremely frustrating when we have to go down on our knees to suck vital information out of people who are in the first place obliged to feed the media with first-hand information to market the very same product they claim to vigorously serve.
Is it not perhaps time for some of the major sporting disciplines to go on a retreat and seriously jack up their Public Relations philosophies, since some of these camera-happy officials are in the habit of summoning media practitioners to any kind of news gathering where a well-prepared press release would have done the trick?
Prior to last weekend’s National Senior Boxing Championships at Keetmanshoop, boxing officials boastfully confirmed that 11 boxers would be selected after completion of the tournament to go in camp ahead of preparations for the African Olympic Qualifiers in Algeria next month.
However, this undertaking appeared to have been just another publicity stunt with no concrete reasons advanced as to why the boxers have not yet been selected – meaning our boxers will be ill prepared for the African Olympic Qualifiers in Algiers next month.
On a sad note, I would like to extend my sincere condolences to the bereaved family of one of Namibia’s few FIFA accredited female referees Anita Jacobs, who has gone to meet her Maker earlier this week after a short illness.
Sis Anita, may your soul rest in eternal peace in one piece.
Dear readers, let me pen off here, so until next year – have a wonderful and trouble-free Chrisa and prosperous New Year and please stay clear off the Haya Water of Moag while negotiating the steering wheel, Adios!