By Isaac Massaquoi
Football will continue to be the most popular sport in Sierra Leone. 2013 will be an interesting year for the sport.
In the first quarter of 2013 the Sierra Leone Football Association will finally elect its new executive committee and so end the rather the drab and austere leadership provided by the erstwhile president Nahim Khadi. Only the tenacity and commitment of Abdul Rahman Swaray and his professional staff in the secretariat kept some kind of organisation in place by the end of 2013.
Khadi had abandoned his office to live in London saying he needed medical treatment. It lasted for long and no effort was made deal with his protracted absence from his office using the association’s constitution.
Khadi returned home as elections loomed only to spark a crisis in the organisation by resigning in the week he was due to leave office. He is reported to have asked some of his executive committee members to go with him just to rob the Committee of an operational quorum and so precipitate a constitutional crisis and prevent the almost certain election of his enemy, the Bo-based football organiser and sponsor, Rodney Michael.
Once again the contest for the SLFA presidency will see Isha Johansen taking on Rodney Michael. Both candidates command a lot of respect in football circles and either of them will run an administration far more professional and progressive than that led by Khadi.
But there are dangers ahead: The SLFA risks being even more polarised depending on the policies pursued by the eventual winner. There are many entrenched, vested interests currently taking positions in their trenches and they can be very obstructionist in securing those interests. A fratricidal war of sabotage against the winner cannot be ruled out.
Those vested interests range from coaches, referees, club executives, former footballers, football scouts and player agents and they have almost unhindered access to the many newspapers and radio stations in particular that spend a good amount of broadcast time on the politics of Sierra Leone football.
The National Football Team have managed to hold their own among the elite football nations in Africa. Their significant rise on the FIFA rankings surprised many but it was all down to hard work and a determination among some young members of the squad who have come good because of the exposure they have experienced playing in leagues in mainly Scandinavia and Southern European countries.
Rebuilding the National Team
The average age of players in national team is 23 years. Only five players are above 25-years - Mohamed Kallon, Ibrahim ‘Obreh’ Kargbo, Kei Kamara, Gibrilla Woobay and Sheriff Suma. The eldest among them is the former Inter Milan and AS Monaco striker Mohamed Kallon who is 33.
Kallon is out of form due mainly to injury and it’s probably a good time for him to consider his future as a player at the heart of the team. He has a lot of experience and if we take a long view of the game, the nation should now seek international help to train him and at least two others of his calibre to prepare them for coaching roles at the national level.
Current Captain Ibrahim ‘Obreh’ Kargbo now 30 might have one or two more years to go depending on his ability to play. It is around people like these that the national team must be re-built.
Leone Stars has four games in 2013, all 2014 World Cup qualifying matches against Tunisia (twice), Equatorial Guinea and Cape Verde. The country can fight this competition with the same team but the team continues to draw matches and even lose them solely because the goal keeper Christian Caulker has fallen into dangerous complacency. Football fans still haven’t seen any clear plan as to how to address the fact that Caulker is losing concentration and must be told he is not indispensable.
Coach Lars Olof Mattsson
Leone Stars head Coach Lars Olof Mattsson took over the team early 2011 in controversial circumstances but has managed to achieve mixed results and generally raise the confidence levels of both players and fans eventhough the team failed to qualify for the African Cup of Nations finals in 2012 and 2013.
He knows the players well and should be allowed to finish his contract which runs on to the end of the World Cup qualifiers.
However, the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) should ensure that the Swede or whoever might replace him spends most of his time in the country to look out for players in the domestic game rather than allowing him to be an absentee coach flying into Freetown few days before matches.
This kind of behaviour has led to an intolerable lack of discipline in the team. It’s no hidden secret that indiscipline in the team has affected performance in almost all our matches. We now have a group of players who consider themselves bigger than the team and the country. I am not sure any concrete steps have been taken to stamp it out.
A recent attempt by minster Paul Kamara to stop Obreh and others from holding the country to ransom failed simply because the minister was afraid of the political consequences of a Leone Stars defeat in Freetown with Obreh and his cohorts out of the team. In the end, it counted for nothing because the Tunisians dumped Sierra Leone out of the competition. A very silent majority of football fans were quietly hoping that the minister would press his disciplinary action to its logical conclusion and were disappointed the minister pulled back on the pretext that good people in the game had pleaded with him to re-consider his action.
The truth is, this was SLFA election time and the move by that candidate who contacted the minister was politically motivated and should never have caused him to change his decision. Players like David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo have both faced disciplinary actions – that’s how countries stamp their authority on such stars who easily forget they are mere mortals idolised by the very society they seek to publicly humiliate.
Funding Football
President Koroma effectively used football in his re-election campaign. His supporters call him ‘World Best’. It was a clever trick by his campaign and it resonated well with young voters. Football is a global game and Koroma is not the only politician to have used the game in this way.
For the thousands of our young people, football represents hope that they will one day make it into the major leagues of Europe to become another Mohamed Kallon or Kanu Nwankwo. They only way that can happen is if Koroma now puts in the necessary investment into the domestic game out of which these young talents will emerge. He doesn’t have to spend too much of our tax money, he could encourage the private sector to make football a priority for corporate social responsibility.
The other important thing that he should do is tell whoever becomes minister to allow elected officials and football administrators to run the game and get involved with small matters like who becomes coach of the national team or how Journalists should report football. Ministers are supposed to be very busy people with lots of policy matters to deal.
Football Academies and Football Development
Another key area for football development is learning the game from grass root level and it’s the only way out to develop players. At the moment only the three-year old Craig Bellamy Foundation (CBF) Academy exists but there others who exist only on paper. In 2013, the SLFA should explore the possibility of using the expertise of trainers from the CBF in their grassroots football development. Treating Craig Bellamy Academy as some foreign investment answerable to its shareholders only, is unwise.
The key question will be: How can that academy help other young talents that are not able to make it into that elite institution.
In 2013, football fans in this country will not accept any mediocre football administration or arrogant and fruitless performance on the field by any player. The fans have suffered too long and they deserve something from the game.
