Govt is unhappy with the stadium crisis
• By Kaipaherue Kandjii
The status quo of local athletes being forced to pay hefty amounts of money to train in neighbouring countries for international games does not sit well with a crop of top officials within the government, a high-ranking public official has disclosed. Namibia, at present, has yet to have a single facility deemed world-class for its athletes to train in or partake in international games. Now, it relies on its neighbour’s generosity, albeit at a cost, for its national teams and athletes to honour their games. It is rumoured that the men’s senior national football team, the Brave Warriors, pays millions of dollars per game to hire stadiums for training and international games in South Africa. In response to this crisis, the deputy minister of information and communication technology, Modestus Amutse, says Vice-president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah is seeking a new paradigm shift to change this state of affairs.
Amutse, says Nandi-Ndaitwah, who is gunning to become the first female Head of State after this year’s polls, wants to set aside billions of dollars to build state-of-the-art sports facilities in a few regions to compensate for the anomaly. “The vice-president of this country comrade Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah has it on her table that come the next five years she is motivating that we have to upgrade the sporting facilities so that in some parts of the country, we will have sporting facilities that are able to even accommodate sporting events at an international level. Because we are not happy to see Namibia’s going to exercise in other countries in preparation for upcoming games,” said Amutse.
Nandi-Ndaitwah, this publication is reliably informed, has set aside plans to upgrade and build new sports facilities worth N$ 8 billion if ushered in as the late Hage Geingob’s successor. There now appears to be a new scramble to erect or refurbish dilapidated stadiums, notably the flagship Independence Stadium, an eyesore, and the defunct Dr. Sam Nujoma Stadium. The government has availed N$ 50 million to renovate the Independence Stadium, which is yet to happen, in a bold bid to co-host the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations with its neighbour, Botswana.
The City of Windhoek, on its part, which owns the Dr Sam Nujoma Stadium, has set aside N$ 7,7 million for its upgrade due to safety concerns. There are many private firms and individuals, such as Ongos Valley and Deon Hotto, a local footballer who plies his trade for Orlando Pirates club in South Africa’s top tier league and unveiled plans to construct their stadiums.
On the part of the Independence Stadium, the government needs an extra N$ 48 million on top of what is on the table to restore the facility to its original glory. The fate of athletes or national teams being rendered ‘homeless’ in the context of sports is regressive and should not reoccur again, Amutse claims.
“We want to end that so that going forward, we have our people preparing for upcoming sporting activities inside the republic of Namibia, and that is, I am telling you, on good authority [from Nandi-Ndaitwah],” he reiterated in his speech at a football and horse racing sporting event in Opuwo, last weekend. Just recently, the Namibia Football Association (NFA) president, Robert Shimooshili, characterized the lack of facilities as a “mess,”. Namibia, he emphasized, as a result of that, was stripped of its right to host the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (COSAFA) under 17 football tourney.
Instead, the rights were re-awarded to Mozambique and Namibia, and income was lost in the form of hotel bookings, transportation, and tourism, amongst others. “It is painful that we cannot host this tournament any more because of the lack of facilities.
“I think the answer to why the bid was taken from us is straightforward, given that we do not have the facilities. “I can tell you right now that we are in a mess as a country and something needs to be done,” Shimooshili told the Namibian Sun recently. Namibia has been without any FIFA-accredited football stadium for several years after the world’s governing body declared both stadiums unfit for hosting international matches.