THE Namibia Football Association on Wednesday announced that NFA Normalisation Committee had suspended the Namibia Premier League (NPL) for bringing football into disrepute.
According to it’s website nfa.org.na, the chairperson of the Normalisation Committee (NC), Hilda Basson-Namundjebo, said that during a meeting on Tuesday, the NC resolved to suspend the Namibia Premier League in view of its persistent and continued disregard and violation of directives which had been issued by the Namibia Football Association.
The suspension is effective immediately and is enforced under the NFA Statutes cited in Article 14. 1 which reads, ‘The Executive Committee may suspend a member or a member of a member that seriously violated its obligations as a member with immediate effect. The suspension shall last until the next Congress, unless the Executive Committee has lifted it in the meantime.
The suspension comes following the NPL’s refusal to promote Orlando Pirates and Civics to the Premier League, after the NC had earlier requested them to do so in terms of ‘sporting merit.’
The NPL maintains that it did not have the power to do so after none of its 13 members submitted a proposal to amend its constitution to allow the two clubs back.
The NFA Manual on Rules and Regulations, reiterates that according to Rule 3 of the Namibia Football Association under 3.1.1, ‘that the Premier League will consist of sixteen or any other number of clubs as decided by the NFA Executive.’
“The directive was highlighted in a letter dated 27 June 2019 in referring to Article 9 (Principle of promotion and relegation) of the regulation governing the application of the Fifa statutes which highlights the need for ‘sporting merit’ when determining a club’s participation in a league as far as it relates to the promotion and relegation of clubs. This must be the guiding principle,” Basson-Namundjebo said.
She also quoted a letter received by Fifa’s deputy secretary general of administration on 21 August, stating that “ignoring decisions from the NFA would leave the NPL vulnerable to potential sanctions as foreseen in Article 13 par. 2 of the NFA Statutes.”
These articles state that ‘members must comply fully with statutes, regulations, directives and decisions of Fifa, Caf, Cosafa and the NFA at all times and must ensure that these are respected by its members.’
The NPL is duly notified that as a consequence of this suspension, it’s membership rights are lost as stipulated by Article 14.3 and that as a consequence are to have no sporting contact with any NFA members.
