The Namibia Football Association Normalisation Committee chairperson Bisey Uirab says the Brave Gladiators who are owed by the national body will be paid before the end of the week.
A meeting to address the pending appearance fees is set for today, after several players protested at the Namibia Football Association (NFA) headquarters in Windhoek on Monday.
“We will convene tomorrow (Wednesday) to find a lasting solution to this problem. It is important to note that the non-payment of players is an issue that has been at NFA for a long time and the ladies can surely expect something by the end of the week,” Uirab said.
“We are going to meet as the administrators and find a solution, but we will not be meeting the players because we know the issues at hand and that is what we need to work towards rectifying,” Uirab added.
The players also claim that NFA kicked them out of their lodgings at football house to make way for their male counterparts.
Uirab said there is a need for a broader discussion on a national scale on ways to strike gender parity in wages across all national teams.
“It is also imperative that we look at aspects of equal pay for equal work from a national issue and try to find ways to address this,” he said in reference to the payment disparities between male and female footballers.
Weighing in on the discussion on the issue on Desert Radio’s Spotlight Programme, sports journalist Manqonda Ndlovu said the normalisation committee must own up to the non-payment and stop shifting blame.
“This is a problem of the normalisation committee and they must deal with it. It’s important to note that if you marry a wife with a child, that child becomes yours, so you can’t blame anyone else,” Ndlovu said.