A young Liberian football coach in Margibi County, Tom Kobbah, is calling on citizens and local communities to take ownership of football clubs operating in different parts of the country as a means of safeguarding the future of the game.
Kobbah said it is important that football clubs at the community levels become a priority for the people around them so that they are encouraged to join the process of creating reforms for thousands of young people that have vision of exploring the game in order to make maximum use of the opportunities therein.
Speaking recently to this paper in an exclusive interview about an ongoing talent hunt football tournament taking place in the Duazon community, the young football enthusiast noted that football investment has been strangulated in Liberia since its introduction because the ordinary people have not decided to join the efforts applied.
According to him, the easiest way that the game can improve in terms of raising the needed resources is when the communities take absolute control of teams and create a medium that can give community residents understanding so that there more benefits are explored in using collective efforts to administer the clubs’ affairs.
Kobbah intimated that using said approach would erase the aged-old phenomenon that has seen single individuals running football teams from their wallets and when said stakeholder goes down, the dreams of the clubs become a wasted exercise.
“It is about time that we take ownership of our clubs if we want to see progress in the football game we witness. Football is a business with lots of opportunities for those who will take advantage of it and we have to take it serious by collectively working to get to where we want to see this country on the playing pitch,” he said.
He explained that research done has informed him that other footballing countries have initiated similar approaches by naming teams after cities and those within the same cities support the team by paying bills and other fees for the upkeep of the team and players.
“When the communities see the teams as their properties, they will sponsor it with their all. One person will not run the club when they have money and that same club breaks down when there is a financial crisis. The same way company teams are running smoothly will be the same experience with the community teams,” Kobbah asserted.
