Last week the Sierra Leone Football Association led by Thomas Daddy Brima issued a statement that left many football fans angry, very angry indeed. We will not reproduce the statement in full here. Ostensibly their intention was to put a check on what they referred to as PREMATURE CAMPAIGNING.
This was in fact a not-so-veiled threat directed at people who are likely to or have signaled an intention to challenge Thomas Daddy Brima next year to stop sounding out delegates directly or indirectly and to tell their supporters to stop campaigning on social media. The press statement was titled RESPONSIBLE PARTICIPATION in SLFA elections.
What does the SLFA really take us for? Their press release was just like a man driving from the bus halt at Brookfields in the morning rush hour with the intention to pick up a friend at Saint John and instead of using Savage Street, decides to drive up King Herman road, through Jomo Kenyatta road, Campbell Street onto Saint John. Why can’t the SLFA address Babadi Kamara of Bo Rangers and his numerous supporters DIRECTLY? Why is that so difficult?
In the last two weeks or so, supporters of Babadi Kamara have taken to social media urging him to run for the presidency of the SLFA next year. We haven’t heard from him directly about any such ambition. The closest the man has come to speaking about the SLFA presidency is when we saw pictures of him meeting traditional leaders in Kono with reports that those influential chiefs have indicated a willingness to endorse him should he decide to run.
Why is the SLFA so weak? They have now issued a statement that says a lot about their state of mind since this social media hype around Babadi started. They have also signaled how they intend to use incumbency to frustrate potential opponents to Thomas Daddy Brima – either disqualify them on a flimsy excuse like PREMATURE CAMPAIGNING or treat them unfairly like tying a boxer’s one hand behind his back and putting him in the ring against Tyson Fury.
In the last 72 hours since the statement came out, Babadi has not said a word in reaction. We did ask him for comments but we drew a blank. We asked because we are clear that he was on the radar of the SLFA when they issued that statement. His supporters have told Politico they remain undaunted.
It’s almost as if the guy is telling the SLFA to pay attention to the job for which they receive some nice FIFA money.
The SLFA gave FOUR reasons why they believe that PREMATURE CAMPAIGNING might negatively affect the game and the running of the organization.
1. Exacerbate existing tensions among rival clubs in the football association leagues
Thomas Daddy Brima should thank his stars for having run this organization without much bickering and rancor since he took over from the QUEEN. The fact is that by the time the QUEEN was pushed out all those stakeholders who fought to end her increasingly arrogant reign decided to give the new man an extended honeymoon, despite the open knowledge that he was heavily backed by the departing monarch. Some even joined his administration to help develop the game.
In all that time, club rivalry was very much alive. It has NEVER stopped. We fail to see the link the SLFA is creating between running the football association and the outcome of matches between Blackpool and East End Lions, for example. Or are they hinting at something we should know?
2. Intensify scrutiny of referee decisions through a political lens within the football association leagues
Come on SLFA! What does this really mean? Again, referee decisions all over the world are constantly being scrutinized to the extent that VAR technology has been brought in to help referees and fans deal with human error or outright bias. What is all this noise about SLFA training professional referees when, as this statement suggests, they can be so political that they would embark on an elaborate cheating program that could take Wilberforce Strikers in Freetown from the bottom of the log where they genuinely belong based on their performance to replace Bo Rangers at the top? We just don’t get this. Why not bring referees from Guinea and Liberia?
3. Undermine the authority and the efficacy of the FA
Honestly we will stoutly resist any attempt to undermine our SLFA. We know the challenges the organization is facing since the enforced departure of the QUEEN. However, her preferred successor squeezed through and won the election that followed and has had enough time to get to grips with what it takes to run the SLFA.
So-called PREMATURE CAMPAIGNING, if it exists at all, can NEVER undermine an SLFA that is focused on its goals.
The real issues that have the propensity to undermine the SLFA are as follows:
a. When people buy failing clubs with the open desire to use the premier league status of those clubs to bring in their own mediocre clubs into the big league
b. When the FA boss tells the world that he will investigate the most grotesque example of match fixing, 95 or 98 goals being scored in a single match, but fails to lift a finger thereafter
c. When even in this day and age we remain the only football league in the world in which people still talk about “ineligible players”
d. When our national teams at all levels become the whipping boys of even the Mano River basin. Let’s not say anything about the wider African continent and all the FA says after every defeat is: “we will learn from our mistakes.”
e. When we appoint a new national coach who is completely out of his depth from his first day in office but is kept in place simply to help facilitate the movement of certain players for commercial reasons and to deny Mohamed Kallon the job. Why do people think we don’t know all these issues?
f. When our senior national team begins to look like an assembly of boys being trained and exposed for the European market not necessarily to bring laurels to Mama Salone.
This list is not exhaustive. We can assure the SLFA however that these are some of the REAL issues undermining the SLFA. By the way, what is that South African guy doing at the SLFA secretariat?
Anyway, the interview with MB Atilla was quite interesting. We shall be back with our PREMATURE CONCLUSIONS on it.
Incite violence among football supporters at football venues
4. Sorry SLFA, we will not allow you people to hide behind so-called PREMATURE CAMPAIGNING to abdicate your responsibility to deal with football hooliganism. This whole thing about Babadi planning to run started less than a month ago. How can the SLFA now use that to explain violence that we have become used to around the local game?
It is the business of the SLFA to act decisively against clubs and their supporters when they cross that crucial line. Why didn’t the SLFA ascribe a political motive to the attack on the female referees recently? All they have done is issue a bland statement that kicks the issue into the long grass. That’s all. All praises to FC Kallon for dealing so decisively with those accused of carrying out that disgraceful behavior.
We shall be back.
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