By Chernor Alimamy Kamara
The Secretary to the Women’s Premier League Board, Jennesy Matturi has during the weekly press briefing at the Ministry of Information and Communications at Youyi building on the 20th October, 2022, urged young kids to play football.
According to her, in as much as they want young girls to play football, they as well want them to focus on their education which she said is something they will depend on at the end of their career.
She said, seven of them were appointed by the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) in February with the mandate to run the first female league in the country. She pointed out that, before the commencement of the league, they did a regional engagement with players, parents and stakeholders, telling them what to expect in the league and also while their children go out to train.
She said, twelve teams were drawn from the provinces in Mena Queens of Makeni, Patricia Humu from Kambia, Ram K from Bo, Mogbwemo Queens from Rutile, Kahunla from Kenema, Albitaya from Kabala, Koya Queens from Koya Mile 38 and Malema from Kailahun. Teams representing Western Area are FC Kallon , Sierra Leone Police, Correctional Service and Victory Evangelistic Ministry (VEM) Buck.
Matturi noted that they want to change the dynamics of football in the country where she said most teams were owned by men and match officials were also surrounded by men. She said they have trained female referees with their male counterparts to officiate matches.
She emphasized that they want to be proud of a strong female national team to represent Sierra Leone in FIFA matches.
She highlighted that this first female premier league is sponsored by Gento, Ram K Enterprises and others. She said they only received a Le 1 billion (one billion old Leone) disbursement from government and Le 400,000,000 (four hundred million Old Leones) from the National Sports Authority (NSA).
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