By S. Siapha Mulbah
The absence of women’s football stakeholder at the Liberia Football Association from match venues during the ongoing women’s football programs question their willingness and passion to develop the sector in Liberia.
It is reported that top members of the local football house especially on the women’s football committee do not show up across the game venues to monitor how the young women programs are implemented which is causing lack of many things in the reporting that are to be recommend to improve the women game throughout the country.
Football administrators and club presidents have informed this paper that the absence of LFA women’s football committee members from the different venues where the lower women league and the community women league are taking place is the most common thing witnessed now a days.
Over the weekend, the president of a lower women’s league club appearing on a weekend sports show in Monrovia intimated that in order to have the women game grow to an expected level in Liberia, those in charge at the level of the football association need to expressed selfless passion and get totally involved in the programs.
The president of Cocky Football Club, Teddy Dahn, said absent from the match venues where the lower women’s programs are taking place across the country will only alarm the lack of passion from the women football authority and their unwillingness to have smooth monitoring mechanism in place for younger and new player.
According to the club administrator, since the start of the 2024 lower women’s league in Liberia where his girls have played majority of the league matches, they are yet to witness the presence of a single top women football stakeholder at the games.
Dahn intimated that in order to have functional women’s football programs and teams playing in Liberia, the football authority has to get back to the root and foundation of the game and think about initiating programs that will create an atmosphere for lower league players to be part of the scouting process.
“I think one other thing that is affecting women’s football and tampering with the performance of our players at all levels is the process of scouting the players for the programs. The people on charge of this process have to be passionate about our teams and go around without season to get the right players under the right programs,” he said.
“They need to go to the community league games and the lower competitions the same way they can go to the upper league games. There are so many talents that can be recruited from these programs and games that are not in the top league. It is about going to every game and not selecting teams to follow and scout players,” Teddy advised the football house.
At the same time, Cocky Football Club president called authorities of the sports sector to focus on the development of grassroot women’s football because of the advantages that are prospect for the future.
According to him, the country has so many advantages on the African continent to make history in the women’s football arena judging from the caliber of players and talents demonstrated in recent times despite the huge financial gap the country is faced with.
In his wisdom, football development being a process that needs the foundational guidance and structural building, if there is more attention given to the grassroot women and girls’ teams, there will be result for the national teams in the nearest future.
