Black Africa suspended from SSFD

Black Africa Sport Club was yesterday suspended from the Southern Stream First Division following a virtual meeting by the SSFD executive committee. 

“Following deliberations, the executive committee of the SSFD resolved unanimously to suspend BASC from the SSFD league provisionally and from participating in any further league matches in terms of article 14.1, read with article 35 of the statutes of the SSFD,” the SSFD chairperson Murs Markus said in a statement issued to Tommy Adams, the acting chairman of one of the two Black Africa factions. 

“It was resolved that BASC failed to honour its obligations asamember of the SSFD and further breached the SSFD, NFA statutes and regulations, thus constituting a misconduct. It was further resolved that the misconduct be referred to a disciplinary committee. Your club will receive correspondence in respect of the anticipated disciplinary hearing, as provided for by the NFA rules and regulations,” he added. 

The suspension of the famed club follows weeks of disruptions which prevented BA’s matches from taking place in the SSFD, which already completed its sixth round over the weekend, with Namibia Correctional Service and Blue Boys on top of the log on 12 points each, while Black Africa is yet to play a match.

Two Black Africa teams turned up for their matches against Blue Boys and Eleven Arrows at the Ramblers field, and with confusion about who the real representatives are, the match officials once again called the matches off. 

Black Africa have now missed their opening six fixtures after the two BA teams also pitched at their previous matches, while a group of disgruntled fans headed by Shaun Asprilla Gariseb also disrupted the matches by holding sit-ins on the field.

The stand-off was turned up a notch on Sunday when the Gariseb faction had the team bus of the other faction led by Lolo Goraseb towed away, with the result that their players were left stranded. 

“Today the fans took their bus from Lolo’s Africa United, because they said if the bus is not parked at the police station Lolo must get arrested; he did not have taxi money to put his boys back to Damara 7,” Gariseb posted on FB on Sunday. 

“They started insulting lifelong BA fans, the boys and Lolo was seen ashamed in his car unable to do anything as the team bus was towed away – fans paid for the tow-in,” he added.

The Gariseb faction had in the meantime also appointed prominent lawyer Norman Tjombe, who sent out an ‘urgent’ letter to the Southern Stream First Division to postpone the weekend’s matches. 

“Our instructions are to demand, as we hereby do, that the group of persons not field any players under the name and style of Black Africa Football Club for the games on 9 and 10 December, and beyond that. Our client is in the process to file an application in the High Court of Namibia against the Southern Stream First Division and the group of persons for appropriate relief, including an interdict against the said group of persons,” it said. 

Gariseb yesterday said they had not filed an application yet, as they attend to further pressing matters following the weekend. 

“We are attending to cases made against our fans by Goraseb’s three-man faction, thus we did not get time to explore our intentions,” he said. 

Markus, who was recently also elected as vice president of the new NFA executive committee, under president Robert Shimooshili, could not be reached for comment, but acting interim general secretary Jochen Traut could, and was quite forthright in his opinions. 

“It’s an SSFD internal matter which is now getting out of hand and they are bringing the league into disrepute. The NFA can’t do anything – they are a member of the SSFD and there’s a process to be followed. They are busy dealing with it, and we can only give advice,” he said. 

“I know the SSFD exco held a meeting last night, so they are dealing with the issue and I know action will be taken,” he added.