A fantastic journey – Basson Namundjebo

WITH the Normalisation Committee’s mandate now fulfilled, its chairperson Hilda Basson Namundjebo looked back at their achievements with pride and is excited about the new chapter they had ushered in for Namibian football.

The normalisation committee’s (NC) term of office officially came to an end on 15 March, but they still need to finalise a few things, she explained.

“Our term has ended, but we have an intermediate arrangement with the new leadership of the NFA until they hold their first excom meeting. They need to appoint a treasurer, so I still had to do the payments and sign the cheques.

“The normalisation committee is now on standby to sign the audited financial statements, while I also gave my final comments and recommendations to Fifa regarding that. Franco (Cosmos) will also stay on as acting secretary general of the NFA to ensure continuity,” she said.

Basson Namundjebo said she was determined to make a success of their mandate.

“From the start I was very focussed on the mandate given to us by Fifa and I did not care what people said, but I think I’m even more thick-skinned now than when I started. When I look back, I think we did a very good job and Fifa and the government were both very happy with the job that we did,” she said.

She acknowledged that the journey was rocky at times.

“Our team started well, that was the typical honeymoon period when we got to know each other, but we also had some issues and disunity especially when the NPL lodged their court case against us. The NC worked as a collective, but they targeted three of us individually – Franco, Matti (Mwandingi) and I, and that caused friction and disunity. That also distracted us from the main goal, but we managed to keep the ship afloat and reached our destination,” she said.

“Fifa should have paid us for our individual outputs, but they paid each member monthly and I don’t think that was fair. Some did most of the work and others not, but I also made recommendations to them regarding that,” she added.

Basson Namundjebo said that the NC also had to fulfil an operational role, besides its governing role.

“We didn’t have a secretary general, we had to ensure that Barry Rukoro left because he was there illegally, but there was an organisational vacuum so Franco became the acting secretary general,” she said.

“So the NC was not there just to govern, but we also had to put a structure in place and we had to worry about menial tasks like paying for toilet rolls, to finding a budget for the national team,” she added.

Basson Namundjebo got a lot of criticism, but she said it made her more determined to fulfil her mandate.

“Some Namibians found it hard to accept that a woman was running football and I actually received a letter saying that I was wheelbarrowed into the job, whatever that means. But my response was to follow Michelle Obama’s advice – ‘when they go low, we go high’,” she said.

“I got another threatening letter saying they were watching me and that they were coming for me, and they even accused me of having an affair, it was all very nasty. But I know who I am, and my family knows me, so that didn’t deter me,” she added.

Despite it all, she said it had been a ‘fantastic journey’.

“It’s been a fantastic journey and I loved the engagement. We had a great relationship with the former minister of sports Erastus Uutoni, he was extremely helpful, notwithstanding their financial situation, for which I was extremely grateful,” she said.

“I’m excited about the future of football in this country. I’d love to see myself in football again, but in another role, and I’m working on something in that regard,” she added.

She also had some advice for the incoming leadership of the NFA.

“The most important advice I can give the new NFA leadership is to always keep the eye on the ball and not the person, because that’s how you manage conflicts. They must be very focussed on their goal and the job at hand. Football thrives on rumours but stay focussed because in the long run, its the results that count,” she said.