By S. Siapha Mulbah
With no delays in its fulfilment to the sponsorship of the national county sports meet, Winners Incorporated has presented an initial L$200,000 for operations of the competition. The presentation was done a day before the kickoff of the quarterfinal stage of the county meet in Monrovia at the headquarters of the leading sports betting company.
The Chief Executive Officer of Winners, Alexander Stone, with a smiling face presented the cheque to Deputy Sports Minister Andy Quamie as a way of lining positive focus for the event so that the funds will be in soon for the start of the last stages of the competition.
CEO Stone expressed his company’s desire of supporting sports in the country because they are heavily involved into betting across the sector.
According to him, Winners Inc. prior to this year’s edition of the national county sports meet had been sponsoring other events and past editions with different amounts in cash but due to reasons from the research of the entity, this year they are only sponsoring the football component of the county meet festival.
He set the amount in the sponsorship deal at L$5 million to be disbursed in different categories to teams and individual performers from the competition.
“We are delighted to reiterate our supports for the county meet. We see the momentum and it is huge to see the country uniting and bring together the 15 counties through sports. We are glad to give the prize money for winners and top performers. Thanks to the Ministry of Youth and Sports that has built a relationship with our company for this event. We are spending L$5million as sponsors to the football awards and we hope that the country will celebrate its festival with our support,” Stone said.
The company revealed that the initial proposal received from the organizers of the event captured both women and men’s football for which the total sponsorship amount was set across. “We had a portion of the amount allotted to women football but since it is no more part of the competition, this amount will only be the men’s football for which we may want to do amendment in the individual awards component.”
Receiving the cheque on behalf of the Ministry, Deputy Minister Quamie lauded the betting company for the level of support they continue to give to the country sporting sector every time they are called upon.
He said, the county steering committee sees the amount as a huge boost to the event and will ensure that it is used for its intended purpose to give the result that the sponsors expect at the end of it all.
“Thank you very much Winners Incorporated for this relieve on the Ministry at the moment. We see this as a huge contribution because in some years back, we never had it. The winners were not getting much but this first winner will take home L$2million, second winner L$1million while third winner will take home L$500,000,” Minister Quamie explained.
He then hopes to see the amount in the sponsorship growing in future editions so that more can be given to those captured in the event budget as top performers.
He added, “Individual players were not getting the amount we have in this deal. We hope that the business will grow so that the amount in this sponsorship can increase in the coming years.”
