By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
The new Premier League Board has laid out a grand plan on how it will run the 2019/2020 Sierra Leone Premier League. The chairman of the board, Allieu Vandi Koroma said much of their plan was focused on technology and innovation.
Koroma outlined the plan at a press conference on Saturday which marked the official launch of the new season.
At the occasion, the board unveiled a new logo for the league: a ball stand for matches, a roll up banner and a website for the PLB that will also host sites for all 14 premier league clubs. An official anthem for the league was also premiered for the first time.
“Football is all about marketing, if people say today the English Premier League is the best it is because of marketing. So, we want to market this league robustly. And one way we are going to do it is to take advantage of the government’s interests in technology and innovation,” Koroma said.
The website hasn’t been launched yet but Koroma took the opportunity to urge clubs to consistently provide information for the website to be updated.
“The onus is going to be on the clubs to be updating whatever thing that is done in the club. If the player is injured you can go to the premier league website and someone will just check the premier league website and say oh this player is injured,” he said.
Alhaji Foray, Head Coach of Kamboi Eagles praised the new focus on innovation. He said he believes in the competence of the Public Relations wing of his club to provide the necessary information needed for public consumption.
“I believe these are good initiatives. I believe when you are taking over authority if you bring in some of the things your predecessors didn’t do, then it’s a good progress,” Foray told Politico.
“We have a very outstanding PRO, he can give you (journalists) all the information you need,” he added.
During the press conference, there was a question about the sustainability of all these new initiatives. In his reply, PLB Chairman Koroma said he could only hope successive boards build on what the current board had started.
“As to sustainability, we can only encourage those coming after us to build on what we are establishing,” Korma said.
These are not the only innovations the PLB is focused on. On Saturday the PLB chairman also announced the provision of Le75million as seed money for each of the 14 clubs in the league.
The 2019/2020 Sierra Leone Premier League season starts on Wednesday, 4th December when FC Johansen takes on Mighty Blackpool in the league’s opener.
Copyright © 2019 Politico Online
