After a hiatus of about three months the new MTC Namibia Premier League season is once again upon us and promises to be bigger and better than ever before. NPL chairman JJ Doeseb led a delegation to South Africa where they held negotiations with the Premier Soccer League and SuperSport that have opened up some exciting new opportunities for the NPL. SuperSport already indicated that they are willing to broadcast a highlights package of NPL matches on DSTV, but insisted that the package must be of a high technical quality. At the time of writing, the NPL was busy negotiating with its sponsor MTC, to tie up this deal, which if successful, could see Namibian soccer reaching millions of viewers across Africa.
Premier League clubs are hard at work, preparing for the new season, while the transfer market has also been buzzing with some interesting new signings being made. What will the new season bring – will African Stars’ dominance continue, or will it be Black Africa’s year? And what about big spending Eleven Arrows, consistent Civics or crowd pullers Orlando Pirates? Who do you fancy? Enter our competition and let us know who you think will win the league and you could be the lucky winner of a top-of-the-range cell phone sponsored by MTC.
Namibian rugby is also heading for exciting times as the NRU has negotiated a sponsorship deal with Trustco to stage an International Sevens tournament in Windhoek at the end of September. Some of the world’s top Sevens teams will be in action, including the 2008 World Cup champions Wales, the 2008 IRB Sevens Circuit champions South Africa, and the legendary Fijians - the most successful Sevens team in the history of the game.
It is a major scoop for the NRU, which seems to have opened up a positive new chapter under the leadership of president Buks Bock and their energetic new CEO Sakkie Mouton. An IRB delegation to Windhoek in August also expressed confidence in the progress being made by the NRU, while exciting times lie in store as Namibia is set to return to the South African Vodacom Cup competition next year.
On the local club scene, the MTC Premier League was heading towards an exciting climax with six teams still in the running for the semifinal places.
Unfortunately the future of Namibian cricket does not seem so rosy as the national team was demoted from the ICC Intercontinental Cup to the ICC Intercontinental Shield competition, following their poor performance at the World Cup qualifiers. It’s a crying shame how this could have happened after Namibia finished as runners-up in the Intercontinental Cup competition last year, and what makes it worse is the fact that there will be no automatic promotion to the Intercontinental Cup for the Shield winners. Namibia has now effectively been relegated to the third division of world cricket, after beating most of the countries in the second division last year – a decision which will seriously hamper Namibia’s developmental efforts. When contacted for comment the ICC tried to evade responsibility, saying that all the Associate members (including Namibia) agreed to the new system, but Cricket Namibia again said that the new system was rushed through and forced upon them. Whatever the reasons, the fact remains that an injustice has been done to Namibian cricket and hopefully the ICC will admit to this and rectify the situation.
There’s lots more in the September issue of Namibia Sport ranging from boxing and hockey to tennis and swimming, as well as our regular columns on Quotes of the Month, the Monthly Calendar, Sport Shorts and Sport Science. And remember to check out our website for daily results and updates on Namibian sport.