NFC continues football sponsorship

THE Namibian Football Consortium will continue its sponsorship of Namibian football, although the starting date for the new league season has not been finalised yet, it was announced yesterday.

“We would like to reinforce our relationship with the NFA. The NFC imposed a sponsorship moratorium in June, due to the problems that arose at that time.But now a programme has been designed to deal with these problems,” the spokesman for the NFC, Cassius Moetie, said at a press conference at Soccer House yesterday.Moeti said that Fifa’s representative for southern Africa, Ashford Mamelodi, came to Namibia with the Fifa roadmap that would craft the way forward for Namibian football.He said the NFC had talked to Mamelodi about their concerns, but that they were now satisfied that everything was under control and that the dust had settled on that episode.”We are back in business.Football will start soon and the people must start flocking to the stadiums,” he said.DIFFICULT DAYS The secretary general of the NFA, Alpheus Gawaseb, said that Namibian football had experienced “some difficult days” and that they were pleased that the moratorium had now been lifted.He, however, could not say when the new season would kick off.”We are in the process of planning the new season and will inform the public in due course.We have been operational and have completed our pre-planning phase,” he said.Responding to a question, Moetie said he did not think that there would be a recurrence of the problem.”It is now water under the bridge and I am positive about the future.We are now moving forward and starting chapter two of our contract,” he said.The NFC, consisting of Mobile Telecommunications, Namibia Breweries and First National Bank of Namibia, signed a N$40 million contract for a period of five years with the NFA in September 2005.The first N$8 million instalment of the contract was recently paid out after completion of the 2005/06 season.The NFC imposed a sponsorship moratorium in June, due to the problems that arose at that time.But now a programme has been designed to deal with these problems,” the spokesman for the NFC, Cassius Moetie, said at a press conference at Soccer House yesterday.Moeti said that Fifa’s representative for southern Africa, Ashford Mamelodi, came to Namibia with the Fifa roadmap that would craft the way forward for Namibian football.He said the NFC had talked to Mamelodi about their concerns, but that they were now satisfied that everything was under control and that the dust had settled on that episode.”We are back in business.Football will start soon and the people must start flocking to the stadiums,” he said.DIFFICULT DAYS The secretary general of the NFA, Alpheus Gawaseb, said that Namibian football had experienced “some difficult days” and that they were pleased that the moratorium had now been lifted.He, however, could not say when the new season would kick off.”We are in the process of planning the new season and will inform the public in due course.We have been operational and have completed our pre-planning phase,” he said.Responding to a question, Moetie said he did not think that there would be a recurrence of the problem.”It is now water under the bridge and I am positive about the future.We are now moving forward and starting chapter two of our contract,” he said.The NFC, consisting of Mobile Telecommunications, Namibia Breweries and First National Bank of Namibia, signed a N$40 million contract for a period of five years with the NFA in September 2005.The first N$8 million instalment of the contract was recently paid out after completion of the 2005/06 season.