The Confederation of African Football (CAF) may likely ban Sierra Leone’s Darling Leone Stars for lack of money to fund their two remaining crucial matches against Chad and Zambia respectively in their ongoing campaign to secure qualification to Morocco 2025.
The Leone Stars’ performances in their previous two matches against the two rival countries were abysmal to say the least, but the nation saw their dramatic comeback against top-tier Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire, which should serve as solace to pessimists within Government circles who are crying doomsday over the National Male Football Team.
President Julius Maada Koni Bio should ensure that the nation’s Footballing Ambassadors get the much needed funds through the National Sports Authority (NSA). President Bio is an avowed football fan generally, but his passion, love, desire and optimism in the Leone Stars even in situations of challenging performances on the pitch is unquestionable. There is every confidence in the hearts and minds of football-loving Sierra Leoneans that this ‘Tok-N-Do’ President will certainly not sit back and watch his National Male Football Team be disqualified in a competition where it has a convincing chance to qualify, simply because his Government failed to fund the team. President Julius Maada Bio must therefore up his game with the Ministry of Finance to meet the much needed financial upkeep of the team to enable it play its remaining qualifying matches against Chad and Zambia. The Leone Stars has a chance of qualifying!
Sources of the Nightwatch Newspaper have opined that if Government reneges from meeting this crucial financial upkeep of the Leone Stars, the African Football Governing Body, CAF will unequivocally disqualify and ban Sierra Leone from participating in future qualifiers; only God knows for how long. Nightwatch Newspaper, and indeed a vast majority of Sierra Leoneans do not want to believe by any figment of imagination, that the Leones Stars risk missing out playing qualifiers against Chad and Zambia due to financial difficulties.
Reports reaching Nightwatch seem to suggest that all efforts aimed at securing the much needed financial resources from the Ministry of Finance for the two qualifier matches have so far proved futile, apparently with no end in sight out of what has become a conundrum for the Government of Sierra Leone.
Nightwatch Newspaper sources have intimated that previous financial supports to the Leone Stars authorized by the Ministry of Finance and disbursed by the Central Bank of Sierra Leone had been reluctantly made in piecemeal, often only after matches have been played. Ironically, the Government of Sierra Leone had only provided funding for only one of the three back-to-back games against Chad and Zambia in the first legs of the qualifiers.
Meanwhile, inasmuch as the President of the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) claims to have sponsored the last match by covering air tickets and hotel accommodations, the lack of comprehensive financial support to his claim remains a pressing issue.
Both the National Sports Authority (NSA) and the Ministry of Sports have declined to comment on the situation, while the situation of the Leone Stars fulfilling their crucial CAF matches obligations remain dire and quite uncertain.
However, despite the country’s President is a passionate fan of the Leone Stars, it would appear that there are certain elements within the Ministry of Sports, the NSA, Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Sierra Leone who are painting bleak chances of the Leone Stars’ qualification to His Excellency the President. In that regard, if the President succumbs to such Shenanigan postulations, the counter effects of a final decision not to fund the National Senior Male Football Team therefore would be dire. Mostly, it will discourage actual competitive football across the country as the Leone Stars are a major source of motivation to the youths of this country, no matter their performance on the pitch.
Coach Amidu Karim and his technical team have lined up an impressive squad for these two very important matches to ensure the team gives Sierra Leoneans their moneys’ worth. This is more so with the return of Sierra Leone’s lucky qualifier boy, Kei Kamara to the team. Sierra Leone’s Leone Stars no doubt are determined more than ever, to qualify for CAN 2025 in the Kingdom of Morocco.
According to CAF sources, should this apparent lackluster move by the Government of President Julius Maada Bio not to provide the necessary funds to necessitate the Leones Stars’ honoring of these remaining fixtures, CAF could impose a ban on Sierra Leone for a minimum of four years, which by all indications, will further jeopardize and put into disrepute the future of football in the country, and this, if it is allowed to happen, will impact negatively on the country’s current improved CAF standing as well as on the motivation of young and upcoming Sierra Leoneans who are wishing to make football a career.
Citizens are, through this medium, soliciting the passionate intervention of HE the President into this ‘money wahala’ impasse in order that the country, he has so moved to rebrand, does not have her named and ranking relegated because his Government cannot pay for its National Senior Male Football team to compete in an African football contest. That by all indication would tantamount to a radical exclusion of the Leone Stars.