By: Mohamed Abu Conteh
The Protocol and Events Department at the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) on 29th July 2022 has provided parental consent forms to parents and guardians of the National U-15 players.
This is to ensure parents and guardians of these players give their consent, for SLFA to travel with them in and out of Sierra Leone to participate in football-related activities. This process serves as one of the many child protection procedures the FA is observing in youth football.
It should be noted that, for years now, players’ profiling, archiving, and record-keeping have been a major problem in the country’s football development. Thus, this roadmap will help the Football Association to keep data and statistics of these young players as they journey through their football careers.
Speaking at the gathering, the National Youth Football Coordinator, Almamy Kuriash Conteh called on parents and guardians of the National U-15 male players to ensure that they take their time to fill out the documents so that the wrong information about their child or ward is not given to the SLFA
He further encouraged them to monitor their child or ward’s academic performance in school. As he puts it, “We at SLFA believe that football and education go together, and that, if any U-15 player does not want to take his academic work seriously, we will not allow him into the squad”.
The National U-15 male team will train and camp in Makeni on Monday before leaving in August for Liberia as the team prepares for the International U-15 Championship.
The Youth Football Coordinator affirmed that on Monday they will have the national Public Relations Officer of the Referees Association as will be having a session to teach the boys the new Law of the Game that has been developed by IFAB, to help the abreast with the new Laws as they are going for international competitions.
