African Stars were crowned the 2022/23 Debmarine Namibia Premiership champions on Saturday after completing their campaign in style with a 6-1 victory against Young Brazilians on Saturday.
After dominating the title race and pulling away from the chasing pack, Stars had already won the league a few weeks ago, but saved their best for last with a comprehensive victory which saw them finishing 12 points ahead of second-placed Blue Waters on the log.
Awilo Stephanus, who had earlier announced his retirement from international football was once again in great form, assisting four goals and scoring two of his own to finish as the league’s top goalscorer with 20 goals. Their other goals were scored by their Comorian striker Ibroihim Youssouf, who scored a brace, their long-time defender Pat Uanivi and midfielder Dynamo Fredericks.
With the win Stars completed a great campaign, that saw them losing only one match throughout the season to finish on 73 points, 12 points ahead of second-placed Blue Waters, who were held to a 1-1 draw by coastal neighbours Eleven Arrows at Walvis Bay.
Life Fighters finished third on 51 points after beating Julinho Sporting 4-3 in Otjiwarongo, while Mighty Gunners finished fourth on 50 points after beating Okahandja United 3-0.
In other matches on Saturday, Civics beat Citizens 2-0, Tigers beat Orlando Pirates 2-1, and Tura Magic beat Unam 1-0.
African Stars received a cheque to the amount of N$600 000 for winning the league, while Blue Waters received N$400 000, Life Fighters N$300 000 and Mighty Gunners N$400 000, while there were also financial awards for all the teams till the 16th position.
The three bottom-placed teams that will be relegated to the first division are Citizens, Eleven Arrows and Black Africa.
Khomas Nampol have already gained promotion to the Premier League as the Southern Stream First Division champions, while they will be joined in the top flight by the winners of the North-West and North-East first division streams.
Stars’ great season nearly did not materialise after they initially opposed the new league, and threatened to boycott it, but their chairperson Patrick Kauta said they decided to participate for the sake of Namibian football.
“I feel very grateful, if I look at our journey and where we came from, but the journey of Namibian football is greater and we are grateful for the opportunity to build on that. If we look at how it all started and go back to 18 October 2022, we had to make hard decisions at African Stars, whether we would participate in this league or forfeit the whole league. Ultimately with serious discussions from all stakeholders, our patron deputy chief justice Petrus Damaseb, the management and the board of African Stars, we decided to participate in it, but we were aiming to win the title in order to participate in Africa which we are now going to do,” he said.
“We had to make a considerable financial input, but our supporters were also fabulous from the first game when we opened against Unam, we took that game as a cup final and we had to win it. I think the technical staff and the players acquitted themselves very well, and our supporters were great, I dont think we would have been able to do this without them, so we are forever grateful to them,” he added.
African Stars will now compete in next season’s African Champions League and Kauta said he was confident that they can do well.
“The difficulty in the champions league is that we havent played football for a long time in this country so we are now trying to strengthen the squad, while we also sent our coach to Zambia to try and improve his qualifications.
“I’d say in my experience since 1996, this is the best African Stars squad that we have assembled, and we are quietly confident that we can get into the group stages of the champions league or the confederations cup,” he added.
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