By Allieu Bockarie
SALONE TIMES PRESS
The Leone Rock Metal Group Company in Sierra Leone has provided Millions of Leones for the organization of a maiden edition of inter-regional football competition. The company has set aside NLe 175,000 (Le175M old notes) for the winner and NLe 30,000 (Le30M old notes) for each participating regions. The company has also held consultative meetings with each of the five regions saying as part of their cooperate responsibility they want to be part of the development of football which they called the most loved sports in the country. Majority of football stakeholders in Sierra Leone have welcome their idea with few having contrary views about the competition. They all accepted that despite playing the competition alongside the national premier league it will help to develop the game. Some though said the fixtures will be too tight for them whiles E.E Lions stated that their players will not take part as they were not officially informed about using of their players in the competition. The company also boosted the Sierra Leone’s Women’s Premier league with some amount of money.
Notwithstanding, in a press briefing by the company at Bintumani Hotel in Freetown the Sports Minister Ibrahim Nylenkeh commended the company for their goodwill gesture to football and went on to appeal to them to extend it to other sports in the country. Some of these Sports he said will soon engage themselves into Olympic qualifying World Cup or World competition qualifying which needs money. The opening ceremony of the regional tournament will take place at the Wusum field in Makeni on the 28th January 2023 and the final will take place in Bo.
