AN ALLEGED act of indiscipline on a foreign trip is fanning the flames of the ongoing melodramatic public feud between NFA president Frans Mbidi and his secretary general Barry Rukoro at home.
That Mbidi and Rukoro have different recollections of the alleged physical assault by Rukoro on Cosafa president Phillip Chiyangwa of Zimbabwe in Johannesburg on 16 February is no surprise, given that the pair are different sides of the same coin.
Wisely, or conveniently, Chiyangwa has stayed out of the spat, despite him being central to the storyline.
That incident catalysed a week-long war of words, which is slowly threatening to expose previously well-guarded in-house trade secrets.
With so much at stake, it is near-impossible to distinguish the roles of Mbidi and Rukoro in what the indomitable secretary general proclaimed “just the beginning of the start of the soap opera”.
Mbidi, who is seeking a second term once his current tenure runs its course in six months, claims his “very bad employer-employee relationship” with Rukoro is not the main reason for his decision not to offer Rukoro a contract extension once the current agreement ends next month.
On Thursday, he vowed to cleanse the NFA of elements who have a stranglehold over the beleaguered national football federation, with emphasis on Rukoro’s role in the maladministration that undermines the NFA’s credibility.
“It gets interesting from hereon. Keep in touch,” Rukoro told The Namibian Sport in one of his intermittent responses over the weekend to Mbidi’s take on the Cosafa annual general assembly sideshow in South Africa, and fresh allegations of Rukoro being the ringleader of “a clique” embroiled in financial irregularities at the NFA Football House.
Mbidi claims Rukoro blocked a change of auditors in 2016 and 2017, a step endorsed at NFA congresses at Oshakati and Lüderitz as part of Mbidi’s bid to stamp his authority on the organisation.
“Congress expressed itself. It was decided that we get new auditors at that meeting. He had the audacity to confront me in congress that ‘no, we must stick with the current auditors’,” said Mbidi.
“The biggest fear of Rukoro is that if he leaves, we will change auditors, and the truth will come out. If he is clean, let new auditors come in tomorrow,” he continued.
“We were always receiving qualified statements, and all of a sudden the financial statements are no more qualified.
“We want to know how we got from being qualified to unqualified. There are no answers, and now attention is being diverted to these petty lies so that we are preoccupied with all this nonsense that is in the newspapers, and the real thing is hidden,” charged Mbidi.
BROKEN RELATIONS
Rukoro vehemently denied Mbidi’s assertions, and branded him a liar last week for supporting unofficial claims that he “attacked” Chiyangwa at the regional football body’s annual general meeting.
“I am surprised that Mr Mbidi can stoop so low,” Rukoro said in response to the claim of blocking the change of auditors.
“Congress minutes will absolve me. I was not the one entrusted with that responsibility by congress. That responsibility was given to the chairperson of the audit and finance committee and that of the compliance [committee], Messrs Donnelly Nell and Mpasi Haingura. You can ask them. It has nothing to do with me,” said Rukoro.
Mbidi also accused Rukoro of habitually defying him and callously spending already stretched resources, like the “unauthorised” N$1 million purchase of national team attire – some of which the Brave Warriors donned at the recent African Nations Championship.
“He is in charge of administration and needs to report to me, and he does not do that. When I question, he will say I’m giving him too many questions, and he will not deliver. He just ignores me. From the time I suspended him [for reported insubordination in February 2017] to today, he has been ignoring me.
“I suspended him because he did not want the fact-finding exercise to take off. I got a report, but he was blocking it,” Mbidi said.
“Like this [new national team] kit. The person just went to spend, and never even got approval by the executive.
“You want to overlook everybody. You don’t want to talk to the president. You claim the executive supports you, but you don’t share anything with the executive. You just go and make a purchase of over a million dollars on a kit without approval from the executive?
“Only him [Rukoro] and the supplier know the agreement. The executive does not have this information. Maybe those he claims are supporting him know this information.
“I am the one reporting to the executive, not him. The ideal situation is that he brings everything to me, and it is not happening,” said Mbidi.
FAR-FETCHED
Rukoro also shot down those allegations.
“Regarding the million for a new national team attire, I am sure the minutes of the [unspecified] exco meeting will absolve me.
“It is sour grapes because I got a cheaper deal. He proposed another deal of N$3 million with another sport kit manufacturer [name known]. I was tasked to find a cheaper alternative, which I did,” Rukoro fired back.
“The fact-finding mission led by Mr Mpasi Haingura and Donnelly Nell came to Football House, did their investigation and submitted a report to the executive committee. The report was discussed in exco more than a year ago. I know that he was not happy that nothing could be held against me, but to say that I blocked the mission is far-fetched,” said Rukoro, who according to Mbidi is clinging to his job to avoid retrospective action for his “suspect activities”.
