The Namibia Premier League (NPL) has announced that the MTC Premiership 2010/11 season, which was scheduled to kick off on September 10, has been postponed to 24 September.
In a statement to the media, the Chief Executive Officer of the NPL, Mathew Haikali did not give a clear reason for the postponement.
“The postponement has been necessitated by a series of events that are beyond the control of the NPL Executive Committee,” the statement read.
This comes on the heel of NPL clubs complaining about the fact that they will miss some of their key players for their first match of the season as a result of the Brave Warriors trip to India for a friendly match scheduled for Wednesday 15 September.
Last season’s third place finishers, Black Africa would have been the worst affected team with four of the players in the squad that will leave for India on the morning of Saturday 11 September.
Black Africa would have missed defender Hartman Toromba, midfielder Rudi Louw, and strikers Jerome Louis and Rodger Katjiteo in what would have been their first match of the season against Cymot SKW on Saturday afternoon.
Defending champions, African Stars who were scheduled to play against coastal side LHU Blue Waters would have had to play with out their star goalkeeper Max Mbaeva, defender Jamu Ngatjizeko and midfielder Ninja Karongee.
In the last decade the start of the NPL season has been delayed due to a number of reasons ranging from legal battles, unresolved promotion play offs, as well as the disbanding of the Namibian Football Consortium that led to the delay of the 2008/9 season.
Other teams that would have been affected include Ramblers (Athiel Mbaha and Eslin Kamuhanga), Eleven Arrows (Virgil Vries and Edward Asino) Civics (Nelson Geingob and Heini Isaacks), and Orlando Pirates (Richard Gariseb and Michael Pienaar).
Alfred Ndyenge from SKW and Gottlieb Nakuta from Blue Waters are the other players that are attached to a club that will be making the trip to India.
Steven Goagab and Quinton Jacobs are the other players who were selected but are with out a club.
The friendly is part of India’s preparations for the Asian Cup in Doha, Qatar in January next year.