FIFA has written a strongly worded letter to Namibia FA President Frans Mbidi disowning embattled and long serving Secretary General Barry Rukoro.
In the letter dated 12.10.2018 responding to Mr.Mbidi who had launched complain at FIFA against Mr.Rukoro who had apparently refused to vacate the office after his term had ended and the Namibia Football Association has not re-newed his contract FIFA Secretary General Fatma Samoura did not mince her words
“We take note of the expiry of the contract of employment of NFA general secretary Barry Rukoro on the 31st April 2018 and that the general secretary was not re-appointed thereafter”
“As such, we can confirm FIFA no longer recognises Mr.Barry Rukoro as the general secretary of NFA”Fatma Samoura wrote on the letter to the NFA President Mbidi.
There have been long running tensions at NFA at it slowly became evident that Namibia Football Association(NFA) President Frans Mbidi and the secretary general Barry Rukoro were not seeing eye to eye and both were ruthlessly using all tricks in the book to try and topple each other – either by hook or crook but from the new developments Mr.Mbidi got the last laugh as FIFA came down guns blazing with the stinging and final nail on the “coffin” of Rukoro.
The frosty relationship between the two protagonists was on the verge of bringing Nambia football into total disrepute over alleged financial, administrative transgressions.
Rukoro, who was technically out of contract since his employment contract officially ended on Saturday, March 31, and Mbidi have been at each other’s throats for some time , swapping verbal jabs over Mbidi’s reported attempts to unilaterally remove Rukoro as head of the NFA secretariat without following the NFA’s laws and statutes, which include consulting the executive committee when making such a decision.
Rukoro has been like the proverbial cat with nine lives in 2016 President Mbidi confirmed the indefinite suspension of Rukoro from all football actitivies and duties at the secretariat after he was accused of gross insubordination.
Earlier this year 2018, Rukoro again courted controversy for violent conduct after allegedly attacking Cosafa President Dr.Phillip Chiyangwa in South Africa. Details of the showdown remained sketchy, but sources told www.soka25east.com that Rukoro reportedly struck Chiyangwa, who doubles as head of the Zimbabwean Football Association, following a difference in opinion during a heated discussion on the sidelines of Cosafa’s annual general meeting held in Johannesburg.
