(LOCAL SPORT)
By: Mohamed Abu Conteh
The Deputy Secretary General of the Sierra Leone Football Association Mohamed Benson Bawoh has confirmed to Journalists that the FIFA artificial turf Project has on 20th September 2022 Officially Commenced across the country. He made this statement at Press Conference at the Sierra Leone Football Association Secretariat in Kingdom.
He described the visit of the two FIFA senior officials to Sierra Leone as successful and it was barely to help the Sierra Leone Football Association to fast track the process as far as the Administrative Process is concerned, with specific reference to Women’s Football, Youth Football, and infrastructure.
He added that the official’s work has commenced marking the Geo-Technical survey and the engineers are currently on the ground, and they will be in five approved venues to collect samples of soil to be tested which is part of the process and that processes will have to be included in the bidding process, hoping that by the end of October 2022 the process of bidding the award of contract for the company that will win the bidding project will be announced to embark on those projects.
He affirmed that on the 12th of November 2022 FIFA development committee will meet and these five artificial works will be discussed and other FIFA development work will be key topics of discussion during their meeting. He noted that after their meeting the money will be remitted to the respective companies and the job of developing those five pitches work will kick –off; the good news if everything remained the same by January the contractors should be able to start effective in the respective venues across the country.
Mohamed Benson Bawoh said the National teams are sometimes constrained because of playing venues that are of standards and with the development of those pitches then the national teams and the top flight league will have better playing facilities in the Country.
He further that on the latest Female Premier League the registration of players has been completed and on the 2nd of October 2022 the female Premier League will starts in the Country and the Football Federation want to get a grand launching of the Female Premier League and that will be announced soon and they are expecting the FIFA to be there as well that shows how important that will be and as Federation, they looking to get a colourful female Premier League.
The Deputy Secretary General of the Sierra Leone Football Association said the longest-serving problem in the Football systems in the country with the transfer of players, the Federation is working tirelessly to put that under control, and for these reasons, they have recently hired Sampha Kamara to work in the competitions department who work with the Premier League clubs and also to handle the transfers of players, and the registrations of players. He noted that the Football federation has introduced the domestics matching system for which the Premier League clubs will have their transfers done before the Premier League kick start and the system will be a game changer towards the 2022/2023 Premier League season which is going to be a good one for the clubs in the country.