Muinjo wants to streamline NFA

NAMIBIA Football Association (NFA) acting president John Muinjo considers streamlining the administration at Soccer House and the appointment of the Brave Warriors’ coach as his priorities.

Muinjo took over as acting president from former president Petrus Damaseb last weekend at an executive meeting held in Otjiwarongo. He told The Namibian Sport in a brief interview yesterday that he was looking at making the administrators at Soccer House more proactive and wanted to instil a sense of professionalism.”We need to look at ourselves first and that is making our office more approachable, professional and friendly enough to all who are involved in the game,” he said.The NFA administrators have in the past been accused of maladministration and, according to Muinjo, this has reflected badly on the reputation of the football mother body.Muinjo said the second priority would be the appointment of the Brave Warriors coach.The 40 applicants still need to be interviewed.The NFA also needs to source funding to pay the coach’s salary.Muinjo said they had approached Government for this purpose, but their second choice would be to ask the Namibia Football Consortium (NFC) for funding.”We want to see what will be brought from Government, but will also talk to the main sponsor,” he said.Namibia has not had a fulltime coach in over five years now and the next coach to be appointed will be expected to sign a contract.In the past, caretaker coaches were assigned to take the national team through certain stages of competitions and were employed on a ‘gentleman’s agreement’.Muinjo said his third priority would be to make the current executive members do more work by establishing committees to deal with the various aspects of football.”The exco members should have a hands-on approach in the activities of the game.Strong co-operation between the executive members, regional administrators and other football officials should be forged to take the game to the next level,” he said.The NFA currently has an Organising and Competitions Committee (OCC), which is centrally based and largely perceived as autocratic.Muinjo believes that responsibilities should be shared, especially with the regions, and they should be empowered to run their own affairs.Asked if he would be available for the chairmanship of Namibia’s 2010 African Nations Cup bid, in case Damaseb declared himself unavailable for that as well, Muinjo said he had not thought about it and would discuss it with Damaseb if necessary.Muinjo is one of the most experienced administrators in the country and served as vice president to former president Imms Namaseb for three years.He acted as president for a year after Namaseb was ousted.Muinjo served as vice president to Damaseb for seven consecutive years and is also a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Referees’ Instructor and a member of CAF’s Youth Competitions.He is also a Fifa Referees Instructor’ and Match Commissioner, a Cosafa executive member and chairman of referees on that level.He told The Namibian Sport in a brief interview yesterday that he was looking at making the administrators at Soccer House more proactive and wanted to instil a sense of professionalism.”We need to look at ourselves first and that is making our office more approachable, professional and friendly enough to all who are involved in the game,” he said.The NFA administrators have in the past been accused of maladministration and, according to Muinjo, this has reflected badly on the reputation of the football mother body.Muinjo said the second priority would be the appointment of the Brave Warriors coach.The 40 applicants still need to be interviewed.The NFA also needs to source funding to pay the coach’s salary.Muinjo said they had approached Government for this purpose, but their second choice would be to ask the Namibia Football Consortium (NFC) for funding.”We want to see what will be brought from Government, but will also talk to the main sponsor,” he said.Namibia has not had a fulltime coach in over five years now and the next coach to be appointed will be expected to sign a contract.In the past, caretaker coaches were assigned to take the national team through certain stages of competitions and were employed on a ‘gentleman’s agreement’.Muinjo said his third priority would be to make the current executive members do more work by establishing committees to deal with the various aspects of football.”The exco members should have a hands-on approach in the activities of the game.Strong co-operation between the executive members, regional administrators and other football officials should be forged to take the game to the next level,” he said.The NFA currently has an Organising and Competitions Committee (OCC), which is centrally based and largely perceived as autocratic.Muinjo believes that responsibilities should be shared, especially with the regions, and they should be empowered to run their own affairs.Asked if he would be available for the chairmanship of Namibia’s 2010 African Nations Cup bid, in case Damaseb declared himself unavailable for that as well, Muinjo said he had not thought about it and would discuss it with Damaseb if necessary.Muinjo is one of the most experienced administrators in the country and served as vice president to former president Imms Namaseb for three years.He acted as president for a year after Namaseb was ousted.Muinjo served as vice president to Damaseb for seven consecutive years and is also a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Referees’ Instructor and a member of CAF’s Youth Competitions.He is also a Fifa Referees Instructor’ and Match Commissioner, a Cosafa executive member and chairman of referees on that level.