By Brima Bah
In recent years there has been a proliferation of youth teams in the country especially in the Western Area. Some of them have been ad-hoc and short-lived, while a few others have demonstrated serious potential to improve and rise to the highest level in Sierra Leonean football.
Sierra Rangers, one of the best ever youth teams in the country is no more. But a good number of the last crop of the Papa Jack players are either with the Kallon FC Juniors or are playing for other teams in the Premier League. Other old youth teams like Real Friends and Malcolm FC are still very much alive and in the business of producing young players who graduate into the various higher levels of football in Sierra Leone.
With the coming of people like Fred Claye of Sheffield United, the emergence of teams like Manchester City SL, Real Mack, Ibrahim FC, Mount Aureol Pizzo, Same Face, Med Mans and a host of other youth teams, there has been a significant improvement in the resourcing and management of youth teams in the country. Some sports pundits have argued that some of the youth teams are far more structured and functional than most of the Premier League teams, which have stuck to the old ways of doing business, refusing reform, and being unable to effect the drastic changes they need to make to get on the way of becoming 21st Century football clubs – i.e being very well structured with the capacity of generating income and making profits from their operations. This way the players, mangers and officials can be sustained from proceeds of the teams’ projects.
The current crop of youth teams has been broadly categorized into two orientations: There are those who remain feeder non division teams engaged in the production of young players (this has serious problems), and those who seek to move through the various levels until they get to the premier level. FC Johansen and Anti Drugs F.C are two classical examples of such youth teams. No doubt, these teams, especially FC Johansen, are far more structured and better financed than most of the premier league teams they joined at the top flight. FC Johansen can boast of one of the best trainers in the country, John Keister, given a professional contract to handle the Johansen side, with the result of his performance being incontrovertible. It speaks for itself: the fastest growing football club in the country. We need more of such football teams for the good of the game. Yes, am tempted to join in that chorus!
The feeder youth teams are left at the mercy of football administrators in the regional Football Associations like the Western Area Football Association. The regional FAs do not only leave Community Amateur Football Associations unsupported and unsupervised, they most times confuse and create serious problems for youth teams and these Community Associations. The matter of player status and transfer is the messiest business in the operation or running of football in Sierra Leone. For this, SLFA should take the ultimate responsibility. Yes! When the currently suspended Premier League started we had more transfer sagas than shots on goal. When it comes to Divisions 1 & 2 and Non Division, the mess is indescribable. It cannot be sensibly discussed.
Records management is a national challenge, but when you have people with reasons not to be transparent, what is available and verifiable could simply be categorized as lost or not found. Players are taken from feeder non-division teams, not only for free, but without any recognition or respect for the contributions of the non-division teams. Nobody gives a hoot about that! Except maybe Community Associations like the Central One Football Association (COFA). In the ongoing 2013 Non Division Competition, COFA is ensuring that only officially registered players represent the teams. The teams are compelled to have the players on contract. They must never have played division football. The sense of this, from the perspective of the non division clubs, is this: should a division team attempts to whisk their players away, as usual, they can challenge them. Since COFA is affiliated to WAFA, the registration of the non division players should be naturally recognized by WAFA. Some hope then for the non division teams. This is gradually becoming the new trend in non division competitions. We await the kickoff of the Kroo Bay/Kroo Town Road Amateur Football Association’s Non Division Campaign, soon to start. I suspect something similar will happen.
Community Amateur Associations like COFA, Fourah Bay Amateur Football Association (FAFA), Kroo Bay Football Association (KBFA), Kingtom Football Association, Eastern Best Promoters, and others continue to organise highly competitive youth leagues. They showcase the prospects of the future of Sierra Leone’s football. What does not need showcasing is their poverty and deprivation. Gaining sponsorship for their competitions remains their biggest headache. The Community Amateur Football Associations do not receive subvention from the Western Area Football Association (WAFA), which in turn, claims not to be receiving much from the parent body, Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA), which obviously receives fat subvention from FIFA, year in, year out. The question of how the money is used or misused is a digression I will not indulge in here or now! The Community Amateur Associations are left on their own to mobilise resources, organise and run their competitions, unsupervised. Things would not always go right. Nobody or institution can function right without some form of supervision or checks. Even the organs of government have checks and balances, we are told. There is always the danger of the community associations imitating SLFA the way it copies from the very questionable FIFA. I am not thinking only about unopposed elections. I am far more worried about fairness, transparency, accountability, and the rarest of them all, INTEGRITY. For youth football to truly be a realistic hope for this country, the community associations and the youth teams must be given serious attention by SLFA. The game must be well regulated, if possible from the Under-12 stage, but without excuses from the non division level. So unrecognised is non division football that you would be forgiven if you did not know that division two teams, even if they play a regular competition, cannot relegate. But ironically new teams come into this third tier of our football league, mysteriously. There are no set criteria for elevation and relegation to and from the second division! That decision is taken by people who believe they owe nobody an explanation.
Hopefully, the rot that was so loudly trumpeted at the tail end of the leadership of Alhaji Unisa Alim Sesay aka Awoko at WAFA would be cleared up and the air freshened up once this new body feels uncomfortable enough with what they inherited and have pleasantly embraced. We were told about how bad things were under the cabal now in office. But since 2011 when the Awoko clique was popularly rejected, things have not got better, in fact, I make bold to say that they have got worse – progressive reversal! They led us to believe that Awoko’s leadership was bad, but what we have now is no better. Thankfully, there is less noise. Nothing is there to shout about, except, of course, politicking, which people are fed up with anyway! People want to see the ball rolling, and the boys are determined to play. The ongoing COFA non division has been the best ever. The boys are really good and impressive. They love the game and play it well. The young coaches are getting training, and they seem to be transmitting their knowledge well.
If we are to be hopeful of the prospect for the future of football in this our football loving country, the noise causers just have to keep quiet and focus on what they need to do, and the newly selected SLFA executive should acknowledge its unpopularity and work towards true reconciliation with the aggrieved party now holding the game to ransom. And, of course, when semblance of normality returns, SLFA should work even harder to bring back sanity, fairness, transparency and accountability in the game.
Politico 03/08/13
