By Kemoh Sesay
The chairman of premier league side, Anti-Drugs Strikers, Alhaji Unisa Alim ‘Awoko’ Sesay has slammed the Press Release issued by the Ministry of Sports and the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) on Tuesday evening making match-fixing allegations against national team players, referees and football administrators.
Speaking to a local radio station, Eagle FM, on Wednesday morning, he described the release as "nonsense". He said it is "untenable and lacks substance". Sesay said "for the executive to take a valid decision they need to have a quorum and as I understand it the meeting they held did have a quorum so whatever decision they reached is nonsense".
He said he believes that "some members of the executive are picking on some stakeholders that they perceive as detractors to molest them". According to him some of the names mentioned had nothing to do with the match in question.
Sesay cited Abdul Kanasieu, who he says succeeded him as Chairman of Western Area Football Association (WAFA), "and that was not before 2011 and all those times I was part of the executive and Kanasieu was President of Ports Authority how can he be part of match fixing with matches that played outside the country" Awoko asked.
"I have led a lot of delegations including the two games in South Africa, Sierra Leone did not lose any of those matches...people considered those matches as the best we have played so far as a nation".
Sesay told the station that the aim of the SLFA to dilute a serious issue at hand namely the annual congress.
Referencing Article 28 of the SLFA constitution, he said "we are going to ask them to account for their stewardship, i.e. how they have been spending our money. On whose mandate did they approve budgets? the SLFA executive is not above the law".
Awoko warned that "nobody will scare us with big names like FIFA and Interpol",...we determine our own destiny, we will not allow them to do anything behind the constitution, I am sympathetic with those whose names have been dragged in the mud”.
(C) Politico 17/07/14
