Samaria to remain Warriors acting coach
…Haikali absent at exco meeting
The Namibia Football Association (NFA) resolved at its executive committee meeting held over the weekend in the capital that Bobby Samaria will stay on as acting head coach of the Brave Warriors until a substantive gaffer for the national team is appointed.
The executive committee meeting was held in the absence of NFA president Ranga Haikali, and was only attended by six members of the executive, namely Isack Fredericks, Netty Cloete, Peter Ndjulu, Iggy Hainghumbi, Shali Amakali and Robert Shimooshili.
Haikali and the association’s secretary general Franco Cosmos are currently at war with each other, with the president fighting to regain his control over the troubled football federation. But he faces an uphill battle against Cosmos, who enjoys the full support of the majority of the executive committee members.
The six members present agreed that Samaria and his technical team will temporarily remain in charge of the Warriors and ensure a smooth campaign for their upcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, where they face Congo on 2 September at the Orlando Stadium in Johannesburg.
Namibia is in Group H of the World Cup qualifiers alongside Senegal, Togo and Congo. Only the group winners will progress to the third and final round of the qualifiers. The meeting also resolved that the NFA secretariat should start putting resources together so that the team leaves for Johannesburg a bit earlier to set up camp before their clash against Congo.
Meanwhile, the executive decided that the Brave Gladiators will play their Africa Women Cup of Nations (AWCON) qualifiers’ home leg against Tanzania in South Africa as well due to a lack of CAF-approved stadiums in Namibia. AWCON qualifiers take place in October.
Contact sports will now be permitted to return under the amended Covid-19 regulations announced on Friday by President Hage Geingob, and the gathering thus decided that leagues will resume as soon as Fifa is notified about the extension of their local calendar due to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic.
The MTC NFA Cup will also resume and proceed from the Round of 16, and the roll-out of the Fifa E-Connect Project as well as technical training and development will equally resume. Club licensing, safety and security and general coordinators’ events were all approved to resume as well. The meeting furthermore approved the audited financial reports for the year 2019-2020.