CRICKET Namibia on Monday announced that Johan Muller had been appointed as its new chief executive officer.
Muller, who takes over from Peter Forster who resigned earlier this year, has extensive experience as a cricket administrator, having worked for the Northerns Cricket Union (NCU) in South Africa in various capacities for the past 16 years.
He started off as an administrator in schools, clubs and private coaching structures, while he went on to become the operations manager of NCU. During this time he also played an important role in developing the Momentum Mutiply Titans into a major sporting brand.
At his presentation, the president of Cricket Namibia, Dr Rudie van Vuuren said they had already started with a rigorous process of interviewing national and international candidates for the job in June.
“We had to find the right CEO, the perfect candidate to take Cricket Namibia to the next level, and now, after an extensive process of interviews and analyses we think we have found the perfect candidate in Johan Muller.
He has extensive experience in developing pipelines for the national team – at school level, at club level and at franchise level,” he said.
“Our vision for Cricket Namibia still remains to create equal career opportunities for the Namibian child, to play as professional cricket players in this country. That strategy and vision will be further developed by our new CEO and we are very proud to announce that Muller has signed a three-year contract with Cricket Namibia,” he added.
Muller said his appointment was a privilege and a dream come true.
“It’s a great privilege to be selected as cricket CEO for a country such as Namibia. It’s a country with a proud heritage specifically on the sporting front and to be associated at this level is a dream come true.”
Muller said there were five strategic objectives that he would focus on, with the first one being administrative excellence.
“We have a role as an administrative body to improve the skills of our staff, to make sure that they are proactive in our planning and that we are inclusive in our communication.
“Secondly, we need to increase activity, specifically focussing on our u10 to u19 school boys and girls, not just at school level, but also at junior club level,” he said.
The third point was the need to develop infrastructure, to build grass pitches for all schools and clubs, and to create infrastructure for regional centres so that more young players could be produced.
“Fourthly, we need to develop products that are commercially viable, so that we can associate with commercial partners and make sure that they gain as much value as we do.
“The fifth point is to build capacity. We need to develop groundsmen, umpires, scorers, and staff in order for us as Cricket Namibia to make sure that we appoint in-house going forward and to make sure that our cricket structures continue to grow,” he added.
Muller said Cricket Namibia needed to be more ‘hands-on at ground level,’ and in this regard they will undertake a road show from 18 to 22 November when they will visit nearly every school and club in central region of Namibia.
“It’s very important for us that we create a product that’s accessible for every Namibian, so that every child, official, umpire, scorer and coach can be involved in cricket and play this wonderful game irrespective of race, gender or age,” he said.
“We also want to encourage commercial partners to rally behind us, to co-develop strategies and to share the vision of taking cricket throughout the country,” he added.
SOURCE: https://www.namibian.com.na/84892/read/Muller-appointed-Cricket-Namibia-CEO
