THE Brave Warriors might host Bafana Bafana’s annual Nelson Mandela Challenge in Windhoek next month.
Namibia Football Association (NFA) acting secretary general Franco Cosmos confirmed on Wednesday that talks with the South African Football Association (Safa) over the friendly on 8 October are at an advanced stage, following Confederation of African Football (CAF) and Fifa’s confirmation of a revised international football calendar earlier this week.
Safa have proposed that the match take place in Windhoek, however, the NFA says that hinges on the Covid-19 situation in the country.
Contact sports is prohibited in Namibia until 12 September under the extended stage 3 of the state of emergency. Also, gatherings are limited to 10 people.
This follows a spike in the number of Covid-19 cases in the country, which lifted travel restrictions for international tourists on Tuesday.
“They want to come and play here, but at the moment the corona situation is challenging,” said Cosmos.
The Mandela Challenge has been held since 1994 to raise money for the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund.
“If the regulations are relaxed then we can look at how we will be able to organise the match in Windhoek. We are still talking about what will work best,” he continued.
“Of course, we are very happy to be considered for this match. We need it, as you know our team has not played for a long time. It will help our preparations for the qualifiers which are around the corner.”
South Africa created a costly ‘bio-bubble’, similar to the one used for the Uefa Champions League and Europa League, to resume domestic football last month.
However, their international travel ban remains in place until further notice.
Nonetheless, the Brave Warriors technical team and NFA are planning for the match and beyond, Cosmos said.
Given the continued absence of football, the selectors are likely to primarily use Namibia’s sizeable legion south of the border for the friendly and subsequent matches.
“Yes, we have spoken to coach Bobby [Samaria] about how we will go about things. We are not just sitting on [our] laurels,” Cosmos said.
CAF shelved the qualification campaign in March over the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the tournament to be postponed to January 2022.
Similarly, this year’s African Nations Championship, which is also set for Cameroon, was rescheduled from April to January-February 2021.
The friendly match is a welcome tune-up for the action-starved Warriors with tough upcoming international assignments looming. Namibia’s last match was a 2-0 defeat to Guinea in the 2021 African Cup of Nations qualifier Group A match played in Conakry.
Mali offer their return to competitive action with back-to-back Afcon qualifiers in November.
The Covid-19 pandemic aside, both nations have mammoth off-field barriers to overcome before then. Mali is under military control following a coup d’etat on 18 August, which forced the resignation of its president.
At home, there is no guarantee when football will start as a livelihood-crippling admin power struggle rages on.
The 18-month-long war has put paid to any hopes Namibian clubs had of playing continental football this season.
The CAF Champions League and CAF Confederation Cup preliminary round matches are set for 20-22 November.
“We haven’t played any football, so we will not have representatives in continental club football for the upcoming season. We have already communicated this to CAF,” Cosmos said.
