January 18, 2017 By: Sahr Morris Jnr
Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) secretariat, has yesterday confirmed that the Association would be hosting its extra-ordinary congress come February, 2017 exactly 21 months after the last congress ended abruptly in Makeni.
The call for an extra-ordinary congress was agreed on by both members of the stakeholder’s faction and the SLFA executive during last week’s closed door meeting summoned by the Sports Minister, Ahmed Khanou and his National Sports Council (NSC) team.
However, with a week, the SLFA secretariat has in a letter of notification, addressed to its membership, confirmed that the 11th February, 2016,would be the tentative date for the said congress.
The SLFA notification letter reads: “Members of the Sierra Leone Football Association are hereby notified that based on the outcome of the meeting held at the Ministry of Sports between the SLFA executive members and stakeholders, the SLFA Secretariat would like to inform members that an extra-ordinary congress will be held in February instant.
“A tentative date has been agreed on for the 11 February, 2017 were applicable. However, the venue shall be communicated after the Executive Committee of SLFA meeting to be held on Wednesday 18th January 2017 at Kingtom Secretariat.”
However, members were asked to comply with their statutory obligations embedded in the SLFA constitution.
The confirmation of staging the congress could be seen as a cooperative way from the Isha Johansen led administration towards sanity in the country’s most popular game.
An attempt to host such a congress came in April ,2015 but was halted prematurely, following disagreements over who should represent some of the Sierra Leone Football Association’s (SLFA) members as delegates.
The chairman of the congress then, the National Olympic Committee (NOC) boss, Dr. Patrick Coker said: “I called off the congress as there were a lot of irregularities in the SLFA that involve representation – especially with the western area, coaches, referees, and veteran associations.”