By S. Siapha Mulbah
The Cash Prize sponsors of the football component of the National County Sports, Meet Winners Incorporated, has disbursed the allotted funding outlined in the 2024/25 competition manual as part of an agreement entered into by the Ministry of Youth and Sports.
The presentation of cash in the respective categories of awardees was held by the betting company at its headquarters on Tuesday February 4, 2025 with representative of county teams, players and others sports stakeholders attending.
The full team of the newest County Meet Champions from Lofa County was in attendance at the event with gracious smiles over the faces of players that were all dressed in one of their official county match jerseys.
Presenting the cash to the honorees, Alexander Stone, the Chief Executive Officer of Winners Inc. encouraged the players and all teams that participated in the competition to always use the County Meet for the purpose for which it was crafted back then in 1956.
According Stone, the matches that were witnessed in the competition were all interesting for the developmental aspect of the country’s football future.
He added that it was a fantastic event to see fans from all sides of the stadium cheering the games as a way of coming together to support their respective counties and work towards unity and reconciliation.
The businessman again reaffirmed the company’s willingness to support events of said nature and expressed excitement of being one of the sponsors of the tournament that continues to runs as the biggest sporting festival.
“We are so delighted to be associated with such a fantastic tournament. It was great to see the counties come together to play competitive football. The games were great and thanks to the teams and all those who were with us and the teams in the tournament.
Meanwhile, Stone lauded Lofa County football team for fully participating in the tournament and emerging as the champions among a total of 15 different counties.
For his part, Sampson Sumo, the Technical Director for Lofa County Football Team, on behalf of the squad rained praises on Winners for their continued contribution to National County Sports Meet.
According to Sumo, the company’s intervention in the competition is a truth reflection to the players that their work on the pitch is something followed by many people who celebrated at the end of every competition.
He added that the recipients of the prizes especially from the winning county, be it individual or collective awards went to the company office with motivated spirits.
“We are thankful to Winners Incorporated for the gesture and their contributions made to the development of sports over the years. Those receiving awards will be motivated to push harder for more competition and we hope that the partnership between the company and the ministry will continue,” he said.
The company turned over a total amount of L$3,650,000 in individual awards to Lofa, Grand Gedeh and Margibi Counties. L$2,000,000 for Lofa as Champions, L$1,000,000 to Grand Gedeh as Runner-Up and L$500,000 to Margibi as winner of the third-place match. An additional 150,000 was awarded to Grand Gedeh team as the Fairplay team of the competition.
In the individual awards categories, L$1,050,000 was disbursed to six respective awards namely best coach, best defender, best goalkeeper, best young player, the highest goal scorers and the most valuable player.
The allotment across those winning best awards in their different roles were L$150,000 each while the MVP and Highest Scorer package summed up to L$450,000.