allAfrica.com: Liberia: Football Still Threaten By Self-Interest (Page 1 of 1)

During the early months of 2007, with intent to capacitate and improve Liberia's most formidable sports, football, the Liberia Football Association (LFA) took a bold step by entering an agreement with a major sporting firm, L-Sporto in the tune of 12.5m.

The deal, according to survey conducted by this paper sought to take advantage of the huge investment from that sporting firm by transforming the Liberian game into a more competitive initiative that could benefit even a 5 year-old child who have had great passion to turn soccer into a career.

According to our survey, the deal would enable L-Sporto provide to the FA a sum of US$50,000 per year for the first four years of the agreement, thus totaling to US$200,000 for administrative cost and an amount of US$100,000 included in the deal for the duration of the agreement per year.

The Survey further unveiled that L-Sporto was to pay US$50,000 to the senior national teams each time they qualify for CAN 2008 and/or 2010 Cup and US$15,00 for each advance rounds up to the quarter-finals. The amount of US$25,000 would be allotted for semi final, while US$50,000 for final and US$150,000 for winning finals respectively.

Though up to present there has been no justifiable reason given for which the Sports Ministry nullified/revoked the deal, but our survey has uncovered that it was simply due to selfish and ugly politics played by football authorities which led to an abrupt disruption of the deal which had the weight of creating another avenue for the growth and development of the Liberian games throughout the country.

The survey further confirmed that the Sporting Firm was appointed by the LFA in April of 2007 as an exclusive equipment supplier of all national teams, basically to supply accessories, equipment, gloves and shin guards for the national team of Liberia.

Following a scroll into a copy of the agreement, the 12.5 million dollars contract if it were accepted by sporting authorities, it was expected to run for the period of eight years thus allowing L-Sporto provide support to all levels of the national team, which includes the providing of a technical director, the sponsorship and the privatization of the Premier Division in the national league by making it more marketable and make sure that it is professionally managed.

In 2006, our investigation revealed that LFA VPO, Adolf Lawrence wrote L-Sporto indicating that the deal was what the LFA wanted and claimed that the Deputy Minister for Sports Marbue Richards was in full support of the deal. He asked that a copy of the agreement be sent to both Mr. Mustapha Raji, the then Chairman on media/marketing and Min. Richards for their review, as they were the only people who mattered in the deal.

According to the investigation, L-SPORTO was jittery about the arrangement that involved a Minister of Government, because normally, they never enter into any sponsorship deals that involve any government personnel and/or Sports Ministries but however, through Mr. Lawrence's insistence, they decided to proceed.

On October 25, 2006, the firm again received a mail from Mr. Lawrence outlining the items that the LFA were interested in securing with the L-SPORTO deal.

The details are playing equipment for 5 national teams, a training camp for the senior team, International friendly matches for the senior team, assistance with the salary payments for a new Technical Director (overseas based) and a cash bonus for qualifying to the CAN 2008/2010 and World Cup 2010 and 2014.

Others included cash incentives and equipment support for the Premier Division, 1st Division, 2nd Division & the women's team, exclusive marketing and branding partner of LFA football, an annual free cash amount of $25,000.00 USD to assist in offsetting administrative cost for the premiership division and development of a training programme for coaches, etc as well as inserting that the term of agreement is to be four (4) years.

Two days after, our survey confirmed that on October 27, 2006, L-SPORTO responded to Mr. Lawrence indicating its agreement with what was outlined, except for the term of the deal. In the communication it was explained to Mr. Lawrence that L-Sporto would only be interested in a long term deal for eight (8) years, based on the size of the investment.

"The negotiations continued and L-Sporto finally instructed their legal department in Hong Kong to secure a long term agreement for eight (8) years with an increase in the cash amount for the LFA from $25,000 to $50,000.USD per year," the survey revealed.

In our survey it was also revealed that three weeks later Mr. Lawrence, in review of the draft agreement he received from L-SPORTO, replied and said that only the following changes needed to be made; 'make all cash payments payable to the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs and however include Deputy Minister Richards' name as the signatory on the agreement.'

Liberians are yet to understand the actual cause as to what led to elapsing of the deal which didn't involve the major actors. From what was learnt, the deal was later halted by the Sports Ministry with direct instructions from Minister Richards.

From all indications and the look of things, our survey confirmed that self interest at a point in time interfered and however superseded national concern for which the worth-wide deal collapsed.

Our survey however uncovered that some individuals from both the Sports Ministry and the FA wanted the business-as-usual to be part of the deal, but unfortunately the sporting firm failed to dance according to their tune and for that reason they put a hold on the advancement of the deal.

Our investigation continues.

web allafrica.com	Enter your search terms	Submit search form
OR subscribers use AllAfrica's premium search engine

Relevant Links

Relevant Links

Liberia

at a Glance

Today's Most Active Stories