OKAHANDJA – Retired African Stars and Liverpool Football Club’s star defender Albert Tjihero has joined the chorus of disgruntled former footballers calling for a complete overhaul of domestic football.
Tjihero, 63, then aged 18, skippered the South West Africa (SWA) Black Eleven against their white counterparts in the historic multiracial exhibition sporting bonanza in apartheid South West Africa at the packed to rafters Suidwes rugby stadium in 1975.
“It really pains me to the core watching the ongoing off the field shenanigans in our football just because of egos between football administrators. “Sadly, the game has fallen in the hands of vultures whose primary interest in the game falls way short of the values and morals on which Namibian football was built on during our playing days,” charges the revered St. Joseph’s High School (Dobra) protégé. He also expressed disappointment with the worrisome poor quality of football dished out week in and week out in the country’s topflight football league, the MTC Premiership, but was quick to offer tangible alternatives.
“Our top league is hopelessly too heavy with sixteen (16) teams and must be downsized with at least half that amount (8) if we are to improve the playing quality and take the game to greater heights.
The strongly built Tjihero, nowadays a successful cattle breeding commercial farmer, is elder brother to retired Brave Warriors captain Bimbo (Tjihero) and has represented his motherland with distinction at provincial level.
Generally regarded as the finest centre back to have ever walked Namibian soil, Albert wound his blossoming football career at ambitious family team Liverpool where he played alongside younger brothers Jamanuka and Bimbo, nephew Chicken Kaengurova, and elder son Tjimbatu, under the mentorship of his brother-in-law and long-time ally Oscar ‘Silver Fox’ Mengo.