By Kemoh Sesay
Some football stakeholders have expressed delight over the removal of Paul Kamara as sports minister in the recent cabinet reshuffle by President Earnest Bai Koroma.
These stakeholders believe that newly appointed Minister, Ahmed Khanou, has the capacity to change the status-quo that has surrounded the game for some time now.
Amidu Banja Kamara, Secretary General of FC Johannsen Football Club, told Politico in a telephone interview that the removal of Paul Kamara as sports minister was the right move by the president to stabilize the “unfortunate situation” that has engulfed the game of football in the country.
FC Johansen is owned by Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) President Isha Johansen who has been one of Paul Kamar’s arch rivals in many years. Their rivalry has seriously affected football in the country.
“As a friend of Paul kamara, I am not happy… But considering the present state of football in the country, the action of the president is timely,” the FC Johansen official said.
He said the only legacy Paul Kamara would be remembered for was for the division he created within and among football stakeholders which had negatively impacted every aspect of the game.
“I was expecting Paul Kamara as a sport minister to have acted independently in solving football impasses between and among football officials in the country, but it turns out the other way’’ Banja Kamara said, hoping that Khanou will excel where Paul Kamara failed.
“Even though the challenges ahead of him [Khanou] are enormous, especially [with] football, he will succeed as we are expecting him to establish an everlasting peace amongst SLFA executive and its members.”
Kofi Deen Nyakoh, the Bo District Football Association (BDFA) Chairman, said the President should have sacked Paul Kamara as minister of sports long before now because of his [Kamara’s] “excessive misbehaviors” with his colleagues at the sport Ministry and the media.
He cautioned the newly appointed Minister to try to rectify the blunders made by the erstwhile minister by not getting himself involved in football politics as his predecessor. “We are ready to work with him,” Nyakoh said.
Ahmed Khanou is currently deputy minister of Lands, Housing and Country Planning. He was also deeply involved in sports, as Secretary General of the Sierra Leone Volley Ball Association. Under his leadership, the game has seen huge improvement, compared to many other sporting disciplines in the country.
Khanou told Politico that he felt “very honored” for the appointment as minister of Sport and that he was prepared to face the new challenges ahead.
But perhaps Khanou’s toughest challenge in his new assignment is football, where two factions have been running the game for the last about two years.
The outgoing minister, Paul Kamara, has not been seeing eye-to-eye with many major stakeholders, notably the elected FA president. This has led to Sierra Leone not honoring some of its international commitments in terms of the game.
Serious football has really not been played in the country for about two years after Paul Kamara fell out with Johansen who he had helped assumed the presidency of the FA.
But Khanou assured that he was willing and ready to work with everybody in the sporting sector, as that would make his job very easy for him.
He said his priority is to develop a strategic sporting program for all sporting disciplines in the country, not only for football.
“I am not a minister of football but a minister of Sports. I will be working with everybody that is involved in sports as that will help a lot to achieve my aims and objectives for the development of sports in the country,” Khanou said.
(C) Politico 15/03/16
