Africa-Press – Namibia. FIFA’S latest intervention effort, which kicks off in earnest in Windhoek tomorrow afternoon, is unlikely to meet resistance, says Namibia Football Association (NFA) secretary general Franco Cosmos. At least not from him.
Cosmos is second in line to meet with the four-member joint Fifa/CAF task force, which will attempt to find a cohesive game plan for Namibia’s disjointed football.
The remedial emissaries, led by Jean-Jacques Diène, who heads the office of the Confederation of Africa’s secretary general, will separately engage expelled NFA president Ranga Haikali, then Cosmos, before talking to the executive committee members, who were also relieved of their duties at the NFA Congress in December.
Haikali, who heads the executive committee, will not be part of tomorrow’s final meeting. “I’m an administrator. I must do what they say. How can I influence Fifa on who to call for a meeting or what to do? I’m not that powerful.
“I don’t know where people get these things from,” Cosmos this week said regarding assertions that he has misdirected Fifa/CAF to benefit his cause.
The national football discord is centred around Haikali and Cosmos’ feud. Cosmos is temporarily overseeing the NFA’s affairs, following the dissolution of the entire executive.
The travellers’ first meeting on Thursday will involve Cosmos and the full complement of NFA executive members, followed by a congregation with representatives of all NFA affiliates.
The Fifa/CAF envoys will then sit down with the NFA audit and compliance committee’s chairperson, before a meeting with the finance manager, technical director, competition director, international relations manager, and women’s football manager.
A courtesy visit to the Ministry of Sport, Youth and National Service “to explain to the government the purpose of the mission” will conclude the visitors’ itinerary in the country on Friday morning.
The exiled Namibia Premier League, which requested to be included in the roundtable discussions, is not on the delegates’ programme. The upcoming assessment mission is essentially a follow-up on previous attempts to reconcile the warring factions.
Two months ago, CAF secretary general Véron Mosengo-Omba was in Namibia on a fact-finding mission on the prevailing power struggle within the NFA. Before that Fifa and CAF attempted to address the NFA’s issues remotely.
Neither effort yielded the desired effect. “This is a repetition. We had zoom meetings with Fifa people in the same manner last year. After that, they said deal with the issues internally, and that’s what the members did at the congress,” Cosmos said.
“They want to bring parties together. Whether it will work or not this time, I cannot say. I think we all want football to start. That can only happen if we can find common ground.” Fifa will foot the bill for the three-day exercise.
“We sincerely hope the mission will have a positive outcome to the current situation, and we kindly ask for your support during our stay,” says Rolf Tanner, the head of member associations governance at Fifa.
Tanner, Solomon Mudege, the group leader of development programmes at Fifa, and Fifa’s regional office development manager, David Fani, complete the task force.
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