The president of Nasir Sports Club of Juba in Central Equatoria State has resigned from the club citing disappointment with the suspension of sports activities by the Juba Local Football Association.
In his resignation letter seen by Radio Tamazuj, Yohanis Musa Pouk, said that he had lost hope in sports activities ever being resumed in the local football association.
“Since my election to this position, I have worked hard to develop the level of the Nasir SC technically and financially to keep up with the challenges of the competitions in which we participated as a team,” he said. “Unfortunately, however, these aspirations collided with the Juba Local Football Association’s decision to suspend football activity in Juba due to its administrative dispute with the South Sudan Football Association (SSFA) in matters related to stadium management.”
Earlier this year, the SSFA suspended members of the board of directors of Juba Local Football Association over a longstanding dispute over the ownership of Juba Stadium.
Pouk described the decision as unwise and said that it would hurt football clubs, players, and the sports fraternity in Juba as a whole.
He pointed out that his club intervened to defuse the situation between the two sports bodies but their efforts failed.
“Nasir Sports Club tried to defuse the crisis through the initiative that I led as the president of the club, exploiting my previous capacity as the former vice president of the South Sudan Football Association and one of the founders, in which I mediated between the Ministry of Youth and Sports CES, and SSFA to bring points of view closer and overcome differences over the management of the stadium, but other parties stubbornly resisted and those efforts failed,” Puok explained.
He said that his erstwhile deputy at the club, Mustafa Awad, will take over management until a new president is elected.
Pouk was elected as Nasir SC president by acclamation in August 2023.
Nasir SC was the first club to represent South Sudan in the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Champions League in 2021.