By Bockarie Allieu
FREETOWN, Feb. 25 (232news.com) – The Minister of Sports Ibrahim Nyelenkeh in a Sports program at one of the local independent radios reaffirmed that John Keister will remain as the head coach of the senior football national team Leone Stars. To ascertain his statement, he said John signed a three years contract with the government which has not come to an end yet. He went that even though the team failed to qualify to the next stage they did well in the just concluded AFCON tournament in Cameroon. According to him Sierra Leone was out of the above competition for 25 years besides he said that was the first top tournament experience for John and the entire back room staff. The Minister said they were giving John the chance to correct the mistakes he made and to go ahead and prepare the team for the 2023 AFCON tournament in Ivory Coast. In preparation for the next AFCON Tournament he said they have lined up several friendly matches which they were now working on. Apart from the friendly matches, he said based on the team performance in Cameroon several Sierra Leonean players overseas were now willing to join the team and play for their national team Leone Stars. He confirmed that the only standard Stadium in Sierra Leone Siaka Steven Stadium will be closed down to the public at the end of this month for a two years’ repair. The repairs he said will involve the practice field which will be upgraded with 6,000 stand capacity, tartan tracks with artificial turf on the pitch. The main bowl pitch will be having natural grass with water pumps round the pitch to water the grass. The tartan tracks will be changed to blue tracks and a photo finish camera will also be installed. The stadium Hostel he said will be upgraded to a 3-star Hotel standard, the swimming pool facilities, the Basketball court, Volleyball court and Long Tennis Court will all be in the renovation package. In this case he said they have asked all the residents at stadium to vacate by the end of February 2022. Nylenkeh also confirmed that funds has started coming into the Sports Basket Fund and say very soon they will be going from one business house to another to get more funds. He said they are also planning up with proposals wherein to any mobile credit one buys there will be a percentage going to the basket fund same goes to betting tickets, fuel and many more. But say the Parliament and the Cabinet will first approve it before the various business houses will start to do the deductions. Nyelenkeh said this will ease the financial burdens on the various sports as government alone will not satisfy all of them.
