NAMIBIA and Morocco have been relegated to Division 1B of the Confederation of African Rugby Cup competition, after both countries failed to turn up for the finals of the CAR Cup in Nairobi last weekend.
The only participating teams were Tunisia and the hosts, Kenya, who played the final on Saturday, with Kenya emerging as the new African champions after a 16-7 victory.Both Namibia and Morocco cited financial constraints for their non-appearance at the finals, but this did not go down well in Kenya where there were calls for both countries to be banned.According to the website sportsnewsarena.com the chairman of the Kenya Rugby Union, Mwangi Muthee, had earlier called for disciplinary measures to be taken against the two countries.It added that the CAR executive meeting in Nairobi on Friday, November 11 then decided that the two countries would be demoted to Division 1B of the CAR Cup.The chief executive officer of the Namibia Rugby Union, Christo Alexander, says he has not heard about this.’How can we be banned if we don’t have funds to participate?’ he asked.’We have received no correspondence from the IRB in this regard,’ he added.The Namibia Rugby Union has been without an executive committee for the past two weeks after the former excom resigned on November 3.Shortly afterwards Namibian rugby’s main sponsor, MTC, announced that it would temporarily withdraw its N$2,5 million annual sponsorship to the NRU following the resignation of the NRU exco.’MTC is not happy with the state of affairs and governance at NRU which has a negative reflection on the MTC brand,’ MTC’s corporate affairs officer Tim Ekandjo was quoted as saying. Alexander however said that they were still in negotiations with MTC and that Namibia would still compete in the 2012 Vodacom Cup competition.’We are still in negotiations and I don’t think that it will have an effect on our participation in the Vodacom Cup,’ he said.Alexander added that the Namibia Sport Commission will hold a meeting shortly to decide on the way forward for rugby in Namibia.DOWN TO 20THNamibia has meanwhile dropped one position down to 20th on the latest International Rugby Board rankings.Although the Welwitschias were not active over the past month, the drop is due to the fact that Uruguay beat Portugal 16-9 in a test match in Lisbon on Sunday, November 13.The victory saw Uruguay climbing three places to 19th while Namibia moved one place down to 20th, while Portugal dropped four places to 24th.Kenya’s victory over Tunisia saw them moving up one position to 39th while Tunisia dropped two positions to 38th on the IRB rankings.South Africa is the top ranked African team at fourth in the world, followed by Namibia (20), Morocco (26), Zimbabwe (35), Tunisia (38) and Kenya (39). – namibiasport.com.na
