Of course, as in all professional sports, money plays a role and funding, or the lack of it, makes chasing their athletic dreams a difficult task for young talented hopefuls. This is the case with the Kraffts too, and that’s why they are prompted to rely on their parents to take on untypical roles, just to help their sons follow their short and long-term goals in beach volleyball.
“It is very difficult for a country like Namibia, or for many African countries, to go to these international tournaments, because we don’t get any funding from our federation or from our sports commission,” Jura Krafft continued. “So, even this trip here to Mexico and the one to Morocco were all funded through private money from our pockets and we managed to secure ourselves some sponsors, whom I would like to take the opportunity to mention here: Janine & Suzelle Davin Sport Trust, Pupkewitz Motors, MSO, Komnik & Franck CC, the DTS club, Sandcourt, and of course Family Krafft & Friends. But to really develop a future for us as a team or for beach volleyball in Namibia, the support is just not there yet.”
“I am not traditionally a coach. I am coming from soccer, but we do not have enough funding for proper coaches,” Martin Krafft, the father, explained. “If you look at Namibia in terms of beach volleyball, we a trying to enhance the sport with everything that we have. We put in a lot of private money, because we love the sport. Overall, we have three clubs for beach volleyball in Namibia. The distances are great, we lack coaches, and we lack some infrastructure, but we have made good progress over the last years and our results show it. But if you compare Namibia’s support in terms of development programs to that in other African countries like Mozambique, Morocco or Senegal, they have great support, while Namibia is struggling with that. We are trying to build a future in a very positive way, because we are sports guys and our aim is to progress. We would also like to build a good connection to the FIVB to enhance the situation in Namibia. That’s what we are trying to achieve.”
“I am very proud of my sons!” team manager and devoted mom Inka Krafft stated. “Jura just turned 17 and Max is 19. So, they are very young players and they have a bright future coming up. We are aiming at Los Angeles 2028, but it would be essential to have an international coach, because within Namibia we don’t have qualified coaches to actually bring them there. But we believe that there is talent and that it would be possible with appropriate funding, and that is the biggest goal that we have.”
