By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
Kono’s only Premier League team, Diamond Stars, has said it is still taking care of its players despite revenues been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Public Relations Officer of the club, Tamba Senessie, told Politico on Monday that even though the players don’t get their usual salaries, they try to give them something.
“We are still paying our players. For example those who are being paid Le 1 million we manage to pay them Le 800,000. As you know football is not playing so we are struggling to raise revenue, but we are still taking care of players,” he said.
Senessie said players who are from Freetown had since left to join their families, but they are keeping the Kono based players in the team’s camp.
Diamond Stars was on resurgence before the abrupt disruption of the league in April this year, due to the viral pandemic. The team had won three games in a row with caretaker coach, Aiah Lebbie (Lobilo)
Diamond Stars were third in the league table before the league was halted.
Before those run of wins they had only won two of their first ten games of the season.
Lobilo has not been given a permanent contract, despite his performance.
Senessie said they are keen to keep Lobilo as the head coach, but they are constrained by the league’s rule to have just holders of License A coaching certificate to be permanent head coach of a Premier League club.
“We haven’t given him a contract yet because of the rule that we can’t have a license B coach to permanently be in charge of a Premier Leaue club,” he said.
The Eastern region team has been linked with former Premier League winner, Lamin Bangura. Bangura won the league with the Diamond Stars for two seasons in a row before he left for Guinea to continue his career.
“We are still in talks with Lamin Bangura, all of this is still happening behind closed doors. But when the season starts we will have to write to the Premier League Board to allow us continue with Lobilo until we get a permanent replacement,” Senessie said.
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