NFA officials corrupt: Coelho

RAMBLERS Football Club president Manuel Coelho says the Namibia Football Association’s officials are corrupt and should resign with immediate effect.

‘The NFA has useless, inefficient and passively corrupt officials who should tender their resignations with immediate effect,’ said the outspoken Coelho.His remarks stem from what he claims an injustice unto his team after the NFA flouted a local cup competition and Fifa rules and regulations.Coelho and his management team at Ramblers, are hugely dissatisfied with the dismissal of their appeal case in a matter which involved veteran Orlando Pirates defender Mohamed Ouseb.According to Ramblers, Ouseb was fielded illegally in a semi-final match that involved both Ramblers and Pirates on May 30 this year.Ouseb is said to have been fielded illegally during the May 6 semi-final match at the Independence Stadium, after he allegedly received a red-card in a previous match.The NFA had none of that and through their Organising and Competitions Committee (OCC), dismissed the case after a complaint by Ramblers. Ramblers subsequently appealed against the entire decision of the OCC for failing to apply the ‘principle of natural justice by not granting the parties and opportunity to be heard and to hear evidence in this matter.’Ramblers claimed in an appeal to the NFA Appeals Board that the OCC erred on the facts to find that the player was not red-carded during the quarter-final match against African Stars on May 16.That NFA Appeals Board dismissed that point and pushed for the final match between Orlando Pirates and Eleven Arrows to be played, which left the Ramblers management having to seek other alternatives.NO JUSTICEYesterday, Coelho and his management team charged that the NFA refused to hear them out and at the same time, failed to do justice to football in general.Coelho said apart from the Ouseb matter, the club previously also complained to the NFA on various wrongdoings in football – which ultimately fell flat when they reached Soccer House.’We were offered bribes to throw matches in many cases. We brought that to the attention of the authorities at NFA and nothing has been done to date,’ Coelho claimed.He also asked the NFA officials to resign with immediate effect as they were ‘running the game of football into the ground.’Despite that, Coelho said they now have enough time to pursue the case because the NFA were also ‘buying time’ when they appealed for the issue.’There are a lot of avenues to explore, but we will collectively decide on which route to take in the following days. We are also not ruling out the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) to come into the fray. It is a serious matter and we want to set the record straight now to make sure that justice prevails, while we don’t want this to happen in future,’ said Coelho.Meanwhile, Ramblers Soccer Section chief executive and club vice president, Harald Hecht, said the current conflicts in the reports of the officials on the matter also open up the way for a possible collision between the NFA and the referees.He says in case there is a deadlock after exploiting all local avenues, the club has the right to go to the Federation of International Football Associations (Fifa).’We cannot rule out the possibility of taking that route if we have exhausted all avenues that are provided for in our set-up. We want this issue to be resolved. We wont leave it here until that has been done,’ he said. corry@namibian.com.na