Stars go for big league

NAMIBIA Premier League champions African Stars will compete in the CAF African Champions League later this year, according to the team’s executive member Patrick Kauta.

He said the club is already hard at work and is looking forward to competing against the best from the African leagues.’At the moment, we are just waiting to see what the various requirements are in terms of participation and the financial implications thereof. But in principle, we are geared towards competing at the event and we don’t see any reason why we cant,’ he said.He said that first and foremost, Stars want to compete in the competition – that draws all the champions of the various leagues across the African continent – for reasons of pride in representing Namibia.’It will also be a good experience for the players as they will be exposed to that level of football. There is no point in being the champions in your league and not testing yourself against the various champions outside your country. We have to play at that level to test our strengths,’ he said.Stars won the Namibian premiership for the second time this year since independence this year but it will only be the first time that they compete in the CAF African Champions league.When they won the league in 1994, the team could not compete due to financial constraints.But this year, Kauta is optimistic that funding will be sought and the trip will be made possible.A team competing in the competition this time around will need to budget at least N$1, 5 million for the first two matches, while further progress in the event will require more funding.’It is a lot of money, but there are always various ways on how to bridge the financial question. We will most certainly look for help from our investors, the mother body and our members. There are solutions to this and I can say with certainty that we will get to this competition,’ he said.Stars will follow in the footsteps of teams such as Tigers, Chief Santos, Liverpool, Blue Waters, Eleven Arrows and Civics if they compete.Civics competed more times than any other Namibian team, with three consecutive appearances after they won the league in 2006, 2007 and 2008.The home team in the competition is required to pay for the accommodation, transport and meals of the visiting team. The visiting team pays for its own flight tickets. They also pay the flight tickets and accommodation, transport and meals for the match officials who normally travel from outside the country, while they are also responsible for all the logistics in terms of stadium bookings, medical aid for players and support staff and related aspects. corry@namibian.com.na