By Bockarie Allieu
FREETOWN, Sep 28 (SALONE TIMES) – Sources reaching SALONE TIMES Sports stated that the National Sports Authority (NSA) has presented a budget of Le70BN for the AFCON Competition in Cameroun next year.
According to the sources closed to NSA, the budget is for national senior male football team Leone Stars participation in the Africa Nations Cup which will take place in Cameroun next year January.
The budget will cover flight tickets and allowances for the players, technical team and officials. It will also cover feeding, lodging and transportation for some fans and officials.
Part of the budget according to sources, will also be used for the friendly matches that the team will be playing to prepare for the competition.
The team will be dominated with foreign base players with few home base players. The above budget has now been presented to the Finance Ministry to cross check before they will approve it.
In actual fact most fans said they are not against the above budget as they are waiting patiently to see which amount the Finance Ministry will approve.
But the Cricket Board raised concern that before this budget there was already a budget before the Finance Ministry for the Sierra Leone Senior female Cricket team for the ICC Female World Cup qualifying tournament in Botswana but that the fund was not disbursed to them before they departed to Botswana in which the NSA Executive Director faithfully promised that they will get the money as soon as they return from Botswana.
The Cricket Board based on the promise went ahead to borrow money from somewhere to allow them take part in the competition.
They went on to encourage the Ladies who were expecting to get their full allowances to sum up courage and play the games as they will receive their balance allowance as soon as they return home.
The team has returned since last week from Botswana and has not received any word from the NSA Board not to talk about receiving the money.
Beside the Ladies, the senior male national team are also preparing for the ICC Senior male T20 World Cup qualifying tournament in Rwanda next month.
According to the Cricket Board, they want to camp the male team in Bo and to tour Nigeria were they will play friendly matches and undergo advance trainings.
The Chairman said the time is approaching faster for the tournament and their opponents are now in camps. The Senior Male ICC T20 World Cup tournament in Rwanda, Sierra Leone will face Botswana on the 2nd November 2021 in the first match.
On the 3rd November 2021 Sierra Leone will host Tanzania, on the 5 Sierra Leone will play against Mozambique and on the 7th November they will battle with the Cameroun Senior male team in their last group stage match. The Chairman has appealed to the government to fast track the monetary transactions for both teams so that they will use the remaining time to camp the team and to also pay the ladies their balance allowances and offset their debts.
