North-East Stream First Division league to kick off

REHOBOTH, 02 MAY – Rounds one and two of the North-East Stream First Division (NESFD) football league will kick off during the weekend of 12-13 May.
The games were initially scheduled for last month, but had to be postponed due to administrative issues within the three Nationwide First Division streams.
NESFD chairperson Mpasi Haingura confirmed the kick-off on Wednesday, saying they wanted to have the matches played during this coming weekend, but could not as the referees were already assigned for Namibia Premier League (NPL) duties.
“It was resolved at the Namibia Football Association (NFA) meeting in Omuthiya on Saturday, that the NFA will fund each stream with N.dollars 666 000. However, after consultations with the Referees Committee Administrator, we decided to postpone it as it will be too costly to get match officials to handle games this weekend,” Haingura said.
He further, in a letter dated 01 May and addressed to all the teams, said the total amount of Week 1 matches will cost the league N.dollars 59 000 with regular match officials at their disposal and N.dollars 70 000 for match officials out of town.
“It is against this background that our league games are finally scheduled to kick off on 12-13 May and we will communicate the fixtures in due course,” he wrote.
Haingura said they have divided the league into two pools of six teams each.
“We have divided our stream into pools of two, with six teams in each group. We had to divide the teams this way to save on travelling costs and to finish on time.”
He said they are in a race against time to finish before the 2018 International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) World Cup and thus, the two pool winners will play in home and away matches to determine which team will be promoted automatically to the Namibia Premier League.
“The two pool winners will play off for promotion to the NPL in the second week of June, while the sixth-placed teams in each group will be relegated,” Haingura said.
NAMPA