A new community football tournament, the Omaruru Open, will offer N$50,000 in prize money when it runs from 3 to 5 July at Omaruru in Namibia’s Erongo region. The chief tournament organiser, Jackson Kahambundu, said the first edition is being staged as a community event to showcase the region’s young talent and draw teams in from across the country.
It is the first time the tournament has been held in Omaruru, although the same organising team has run the Valentine’s Open and the Easter Open in Walvis Bay. The Omaruru Open Tournament launch statement published by The Namibian on Tuesday sets out the prize purse, a N$2,000 entry fee, and a scout-friendly pitch to the region’s football clubs.
A N$50,000 Stage for Erongo’s Young Footballers
The headline number on the announcement is the purse, and the way it is divided sets the tone for the three days at Omaruru. Half of the total goes to the winner, a quarter to the runners-up, and the remaining quarter to the two losing semi-finalists. Teams must pay a N$2,000 registration fee to enter.
The split mirrors a regional cup rather than a flat prize: it rewards the title without flattening the gap between finalist and semi-finalist. The Namibian reported the figures from a statement he issued at the launch. The N$25,000 winning prize is the largest he has put on offer in his community football work to date, and the entry fee matches what a prior Omaruru tournament charged at the gate. The purse is also twice the size of the Valentine’s Open pool in Walvis Bay earlier in the year.
| Position | Prize money |
|---|---|
| Winner | N$25,000 |
| Runners-up | N$12,500 |
| Losing semi-finalists (each) | N$6,250 |
| Total purse | N$50,000 |
| Team registration fee | N$2,000 |
The Walvis Bay Operator Behind the Omaruru Open
Kahambundu is not new to staging community football. The Namibian Sun reported in February that his Valentine’s Open, held on 28 February in Walvis Bay, drew local teams and a N$25,000 total prize pool. Kahambundu’s earlier Valentine’s Open in Walvis Bay also included individual awards for Player of the Tournament, Best Defender, Best Goalkeeper and Top Goal Scorer.
The Omaruru Open doubles that purse and lifts the entry fee from N$1,700 in Walvis Bay to N$2,000 in Omaruru. The Valentine’s Open draw was set for 27 February, and he told the Namibian Sun the tournament helped keep youth “engaged with activities off the streets,” a framing he has carried into the Omaruru launch. There, he has argued the new event will “spearhead economical activities at Omaruru and surrounding towns,” again according to The Namibian.
He has described the Omaruru event as the start of an annual fixture, built on what his team learned at the Valentine’s Open and at a third community tournament, the Easter Open, also in Walvis Bay. The three cups together amount to a small portfolio of community football events moving between Namibian towns, all run on a vendor-and-sponsorship model the Valentine’s Open used to clear a N$25,000 purse.
- Valentine’s Open, Walvis Bay (28 Feb 2026): N$25,000 total purse, N$1,700 team fee, N$350 vendor stall fee, individual awards on top of team prizes.
- Easter Open, Walvis Bay: community tournament, full prize figures not published in the launch coverage.
- Omaruru Open (3-5 July 2026): N$50,000 total purse, N$2,000 team fee, prize split weighted to the winner.
Omaruru Has Hosted Football Before
Omaruru is no stranger to community football. The town has staged the Mayoral Cup, a football and netball open tournament that ran at the Mabokke Stadium and Lunar Park with a combined N$60,000 purse split between the two sports. The football-only share of that purse was N$40,000, with the winning team taking N$20,000, the runners-up N$10,000 and the losing semi-finalists N$5,000 each. A separate youth programme, the O! Yes OlympAfrica Youth Empowerment Through Sport, has also used Omaruru as the venue for its regional finals.
That programme, run by the Omaruru regional sports office with the Namibia National Olympic Committee, brought together young teams from eight Erongo zones including Daures A, Daures B, Karibib, Omaruru, Swakopmund A, Swakopmund B, Walvis Bay A and Walvis Bay B. The O! Yes OlympAfrica youth football finals in Omaruru drew squads with at least three girls on the pitch at all times. The mixed-gender format sits in a different space from the open senior cup the organiser is now running.
The eight-zone footprint of the OlympAfrica programme overlaps directly with the catchment the Omaruru Open is now targeting. The earlier Mayoral Cup at Mabokke Stadium was already open to players from the premiership, the first and second divisions, and amateur ranks, according to the Namibian news agency NAMPA. That is a sign the regional player pool is already mixing across levels. The Mayoral Cup also staged a netball competition on the same weekend, an example of the multi-sport, multi-code community weekend the new event will have to slot into. Both the Mayoral Cup and the OlympAfrica programme predate the new tournament by several years.
That overlap is part of what makes the timing of the new tournament notable. The Erongo region already runs structured youth football with NNOC backing, and the Mayoral Cup has staged an open football event with a comparable purse before. The Omaruru Open is adding a third community football fixture to a town that already has two.
- Mayoral Cup, Omaruru: open football and netball, N$60,000 combined purse, Mabokke Stadium and Lunar Park.
- O! Yes OlympAfrica Youth Empowerment Through Sport, Omaruru: NNOC-backed youth tournament, eight Erongo zones, OlympAfrica Centre.
- Valentine’s Open and Easter Open, Walvis Bay: the organiser’s community football portfolio, Valentine’s Open 2026 carried a N$25,000 purse.
The Talent Hunt That Frames the Tournament
The Omaruru Open is being sold to clubs, scouts and parents as a talent showcase. He told The Namibian the goal is to “promote football development, untested raw talent” and to give “local football club coaches” a chance to scout players in the region. The phrasing matters: the value of the event, in the organiser’s own framing, is the players it surfaces, not the prize money it pays out. It is the same audience the regional clubs will be looking at when the new season’s intake begins, and the N$50,000 purse is meant to pull them into Omaruru.
He has used similar language before. In February, when he launched the Valentine’s Open in Walvis Bay, he argued the regional cups feed directly into club-level scouting. The scouting pitch is consistent across both events, a sign the organiser sees community cups as a feeder system for higher-level football. The Namibian Sun’s coverage of the Valentine’s Open also lists individual awards including Top Goal Scorer and Best Goalkeeper, hooks that give scouts a simple way to follow standout players into club trials. The Mayoral Cup in Omaruru was already open to players from the premiership, the first and second divisions, and amateur ranks, which means the regional player pool is already mixing across levels.
Tournaments such as these give hope to young people who are mostly confronted by social ills such as drugs and alcohol abuse. That is why we give them a platform to express their talent.
That is how Kahambundu, the chief organiser of the Omaruru Open, framed the social case for the event in a statement to The Namibian. The anti-ills pitch has become a regular feature of his event announcements, surfacing in his Walvis Bay launches as well. It frames the tournament as a youth intervention running alongside the competition, and gives municipal and corporate sponsors a second reason to back the purse.
The Sponsor Question Behind the Purse
The N$50,000 purse is the most visible number in the announcement, but it is also the one the organisers are least able to fund on their own. He told The Namibian that “sponsorship contributions will assist in covering prize money, match officials, venue preparation, equipment, security, medical services, marketing, and other operational costs associated with hosting a quality sporting event.” No sponsor has been named in the launch coverage. The team registration income alone will not cover the prize money, the officials and the rest of the cost stack.
That matters because the prize pool is only one line in a longer cost stack. Match officials, venue preparation, equipment, security, medical services and marketing are all listed as sponsorship-funded in his statement. The N$2,000 team registration fee is a real source of revenue, but it will not cover the full bill on its own.
Kahambundu has appealed to “regional leaders and towns’ municipalities” to back the event, and to “partnerships with sponsors, local businesses, community leaders, and sports stakeholders” as a second route. The launch statement names both groups in the same breath. The text reads less like a balance-sheet announcement and more like a sponsor-recruitment pitch. The prize structure has been published. The bank balance behind it has not.
The Valentine’s Open model in Walvis Bay suggests the math is tight at smaller scale, with registration and stall income falling short of the prize purse. The same arithmetic applies to the larger Omaruru event. The purse is the headline, but the bank balance depends on a sponsor list that has not yet been published.
- Prize money (figure committed in the launch statement)
- Match officials and venue preparation
- Equipment, security and medical services
- Marketing and other operational costs
- Team registration income (N$2,000 per team)
- Vendor stall income (figure not yet published for the Omaruru event)
The Town’s Economy as Silent Stakeholder
The stakeholders with the most to gain from the Omaruru Open may not be the teams. The town of Omaruru itself is being positioned as an economic beneficiary. He has said the event is “expected to attract teams from various parts of the country” and is designed to “spearhead economical activities at Omaruru and surrounding towns.” The phrase has been used twice in the launch statement, which suggests the local economy is being sold to sponsors as a second line of return on the purse.
In Walvis Bay, vendor stalls at the Valentine’s Open were priced at N$350, and he told the Namibian Sun that vendors had the opportunity to sell their products on site. The Omaruru event has not yet published a vendor or stall fee, but the same vendor model is implied by the way the tournament is being sold. Teams travelling in for a three-day event will need somewhere to stay and eat, and access to fuel along the corridor. If the event draws the kind of cross-country participation the organiser expects, the indirect spend in Omaruru will be larger than the prize pool. The local economy is, in effect, the venue’s other customer base for the weekend.
That makes the local economy the silent stakeholder in the announcement. Local businesses, the town’s hospitality economy, and the regional logistics chain all have something to gain if the event lands. They also have something to lose if the sponsorship falls through and the tournament is scaled back or cancelled. The Omaruru Open is, in practice, a community economic bet dressed as a football fixture, with the prize money on the surface and the vendor trade underneath.
- Hospitality: lodges, guesthouses and B&Bs in and around Omaruru will pick up bookings from travelling teams and supporters.
- Food and beverage: restaurants, shebeens and informal traders near the venue will see a three-day spike in weekend trade.
- Transport and fuel: taxis, intercity buses and filling stations along the Omaruru corridor will handle the cross-country teams the organiser expects.
- Vendor stalls: the Valentine’s Open model puts stall space at the venue, giving small traders a direct cut of the event spend.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where is the Omaruru Open Tournament being held?
The first edition runs from 3 to 5 July at Omaruru in Namibia’s Erongo region, with participating teams drawn from across the country. Registration opened with the launch statement carried by The Namibian on Tuesday.
How is the N$50,000 prize money split?
The winning team takes N$25,000, the runners-up N$12,500, and each of the two losing semi-finalists N$6,250. Teams pay a N$2,000 registration fee to enter, the same fee a prior Omaruru community football event charged at the gate.
Who is organising the Omaruru Open?
Kahambundu is the Walvis Bay-based football organiser behind the Valentine’s Open and the Easter Open. The Namibian Sun covered his Valentine’s Open launch in February 2026.
What costs does the N$50,000 prize money have to cover?
The prize money is only one of the line items. Kahambundu has listed match officials, venue preparation, equipment, security, medical services and marketing as the other costs the tournament’s sponsorship will need to fund. No sponsor has been named in the launch coverage.
