Stop Afcon talk

Limba Mupetami



Recently, Botswana made a proposal to co-host the 2027 edition of the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) with Namibia.

That is four years from now. When I heard this, I nearly fell off my chair, and rightfully so.

There are moments to joke and laugh around, there are other moments when we have to get serious. Afcon is the football crème de la crème of African football.

It is a showpiece that looks at the big boys of African football. But also, as you have seen with Comoros in the current edition, it looks at those countries who are coming into the fray, slowly but surely.

It’s a very special tournament, and as much as the tournament is special, special care goes into preparing for it. Now, among preparations, Cameroon - when they hosted Malawi for the World Cup qualifiers - unveiled a state-of-the-art stadium. Apart from the football pitch, the sports complex at Olembe has two training stadiums, with 1 000 seats each; a gymnasium for handball, basketball, volleyball and tennis; an Olympic swimming pool; a five-star hotel with 70 rooms; a shopping mall; a museum, and a cinema.

That’s one stadium. In preparation they had already inaugurated four other stadiums in the cities of Douala, Bafoussam, Garoua and Limbe, stadiums which are currently staging Afcon matches.

I think in certain parts of Africa, especially in Namibia, we like to dream. Which is okay, but dream with a spade in hand.

Firstly, we don’t have functioning stadiums in the capital. Let’s delve into the Sam Nujoma Stadium. That quick fix at this moment is closed because it doesn’t qualify to Fifa standards. I would call the state that it’s in pre-independence structures. With an artificial turf that has seen better days.

And just to add insult to injury, I will throw in the Independence Stadium. Just the other day, the minister of sports organised a grass-cutting clean-up campaign. Like maintenance people are not employed to do that. The point of the matter here is that the stadiums we have, even if we had to co-host, don’t have sitting capacity.

Then we have the big issue of sports funding. Who will fund these activities? We all know our government is allergic to funding sports.

I think we are football starved and have started dreaming of unrealistic things. In future, yes, maybe we can look at co-hosting. But for now, let’s get our leagues in order.

Let’s think about buying footballs and nets first before we build poles. Let’s have strategic plans and have the right people to execute them, and let’s rather leave Botswana to co-host with South Africa.

As for us, we are nowhere close to uttering – even whispering - the word Afcon.

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