Friday Mar 29

In the eyes of the Chairman-My Premier League Board Experience!

By Rodney Edmond Michael

Rodney Michael ex Premier League Board Chairman

THE PREMIER LEAGUE ORIGIN:

The Premier League was first introduced in England in 1992-3 season and since then the world has appreciated the huge success it has brought to English Football. This has led to many a country world-wide adopting identical structures to suit their own locality, and even though most have given it the Premier League title, others have been content to copy the structure/idea but retain or adopt other names.

AFRICAN SCENARIO:

In Africa, the best League which is ranked in the top 10 in the world, is the South African Primary League called “The Premier Soccer League” which was the initiative of two of South Africa’s most recognizable football figures, Irvin Khoza who is the owner of Orlando Pirates cum the PSL Board Chairman and Kaizer Mautang the owner of Kaizer Chiefs.

Since the introduction of The PSL, South Africa football has experienced a transformation that has seen the local game grow to an unbelievable level with players imported from all over Africa, South America and a few from Europe. It has also experienced strong partnerships with major clubs in Europe such as The Tottenham Hotspurs/ Supersport United partnership. This was the intention of adopting the English system and the achievement is visible to all. The League is now worth Hundreds of millions of dollars and the annual sponsorship package and TV Rights has approached about fifty million US Dollars annually.

In Kenya, which is now the Continents fastest developing League, The Premier League Clubs took advantage of the conflict between the Government and The FA and divorced itself totally from the FA in forming a Company called the Kenyan Premier League (KPL) owned by all the Clubs equally, as in England, with a unique structure of having only the Chairmen representing the Clubs in the Board-no deputies, no acting Chairmen, no representatives for absentees and the Chairman of the Board is automatic- the Chairmanof the winning team of the previous League assuming the position.

It has ensured that the clubs appoint Chairmen suitable for such honour and since the League is owned by them as share-holders, they are bound to be transparent and accountable, and individually they serve as a check on each other. Expenditures are approved by the Board whilst the Secretariat handles all administrative works. Their only form of revenue is the TV Rights sold to SuperSport for $ 500,000 in the first year, and which has now been renewed at about $ 2 million a year.

In the West and North of Africa, many have adopted identical structures with Ghana and Nigeria in West Africa receiving very lucrative sponsorship from TV Rights and corporate sponsorship. Their leagues are now stable and improving whilst the North has always had very successful Leagues.

The Sierra Leone story:

It was in 2006, at the S.L.F.A. Congress at Kingtom that The Central Parade founder and General Manger, Foday Turay, proposed the adoption of a Board to handle the Premier League in Sierra Leone, with the vision that we could enjoy the huge success others benefitted from with such transformation. It was unanimously supported and the executive was mandated to set up the Board, an assignment it failed to do and deliberately ignored, continuing to run the Premier League for the 2006-8 seasons.

The PLB Amendment and the first Board:

At the 2008 S.L.F.A. Congress at the Miatta Conference centre, Congress approved a proposed amendment that had more specific details and determined the composition of the Board, allowing three representatives from the executive and three from the Clubs. It also gave the responsibility to the PLB to Manage and Supervise the League and allowed them some autonomy. The six appointed members were to choose their Chairman.


The first Premier League Board was appointed in October 2008 with Alpha Timbo as Chairman, and they left office at the end of the 2009-10 season after the unceremonious removal of the Chairman on political grounds. Technically the Board was illegally appointed because the membership was imposed on the clubs and the Chairman was appointed by The Executive. However the clubs accepted the Board either in good faith, or maybe by virtue of the fact that not many understood the amendment properly. In all honesty the Board did well and established the foundation for their successors.

My Experience:

In July 2008, just after the S.L.F.A. Elections which we lost, I was contacted by some as to the possibility of me taking over as PLB Chairman, and to which I expressed my willingness to serve football always. It was however not to be then because the F.A. Executive saw my support and active role in helping out with the Sierra Leone versus Nigeria finale in Nigeria for the 2010 qualifiers as a betrayal to the FA and in support of the Ministry’s involvement in the game. Another story for another time and will not touch on it now.

At the end of 2010, I received a call from the FA enquiring about my willingness to serve as the Board Chairman, to which I responded in the affirmative but with two conditions; firstly they should not expect me to abort my intent to contest for the S.L.F.A. Presidency and secondly it was the Board members who were to appoint the Chairman. The first was accepted but the second was rejected by the Executive who went ahead and appointed me as Chairman.

It is right for one to assume that the FA was ready to manipulate the mandate of congress to have its way and this was a gross violation of the amendment of 2008 mentioned inter alia. However since it had been done with the previous Board, and knowing that very few were willing to adhere to the provisions of the mandates, I decided to accept their appointment but to regularize it at the first Board meeting by allowing all six Board members to appoint their Chairman, and as God would have it, I was endorsed unanimously and the Executive was notified appropriately that it had been regularized.

However, before our first meeting, I realized that the Executive again insisted on violating the amendment by appointing four Board members, which again was unacceptable and so I wrote them and copied all the other six appointees, attaching the amendment which was obviously not available to them at the time, and insisting that if I were to be in that Board, one of the appointees would have to be removed because the provision allowed only for 6 and not 7 which would have been unconstitutional. This was eventually resolved in January 2011 and work commenced immediately. However it was now evident not many knew how the Premier League was to operate and regrettably even members of the Executive and Premier League clubs were struggling to understand the amendment and the role of the PLB and the limitations of the Executive. It was the first challenge for us as a Board to withstand the pressure from the “bosses” who were hell bent on affirming their supreme control.

It was soon to come to light that the Board was going to be frustrated when we entered into some mutual agreement with Mediatel to represent our interests in Europe. They were already in partnership with the FA, representing the Kit sponsors for the National teams, Hummel, and when the relationship went sour “The Bosses” expected us to discontinue our relationship with them and this was unacceptable to us. The responsibility of the PLB was to Manage and supervise the Premier League which included acquiring funds and sponsorship, and seeking potential opportunities for growth. In Mediatel we had an opportunity of promoting our Premier League internationally through their website www.sierraleonefootball.com and also to receive some form of support like footballs etc. It was a potential that could have blossomed but for the eventualities between the FA and Mediatel. However we received a pledge of 200 balls, of which 70 were delivered to our representative in the UK- 35 of which came to Sierra Leone for the commencement of the aborted 2011-12 league.

The bone of contention was the FA Executive had no right to interfere into our agreements and this was a serious tussle with series of correspondence exchanged between both parties. We had to ignore their last correspondence in the belief that they would realize their limitations and insisted our relationship with Mediatel continued.

The appointment to the Premier League Board is prestigious, and to be Chairman at times appeared to be on top of the world. However it also meant a lot of hard work, financial sacrifice and at times unfair humiliation.


In spite of our hard work, dedication and passion for the game, we faced total humiliation, embarrassment and criticism, for what we considered to be in the best interest of the clubs, when in trying to reduce the high cost of match officials, we designed a plan to use only the centre referee from out of town, and the linesmen from the locality. The clubs ganged up, incited by a few, and accused us of corruption, mismanagement and partiality. The allegations were unjustifiable and intention of the few ring-leaders was to target me as an individual, irrespective of the embarrassment it was going to cause to the Board as a whole, and ignoring the tremendous voluntary service we were providing. It was at the time a very ungrateful action from the clubs and the threat to stop the league was ironical because the reason forwarded was actually what we thought was in their best interest financially.

The annoying aspect of it all was that the clubs had three out of the six representatives in the Board and such an approach was wrong if the intention was not to embarrass us. The appropriate action was for them to have gone through their representatives and the issue could have been resolved amicably without any embarrassment, but of course that would have defeated the intention of the ring leaders. However through dialogue and with extreme patience we were able to resolve the issue but regrettably the clubs only apologized to their representatives and refused to apologize to the three appointees of the FA Executive. In the interest of football we continued and accepted the unfortunate incident as a test of our love for the game and the league completed with a lot of commendations from the FA, The Sponsors and the public and it became a feather in our cap.

Sponsorship:

During our term in office we discovered the difficulty in attracting sponsorship. In the first league Africell and Mercury came on Board under some form of duress from me in particular by virtue of my relationship with them.

In the case of Africell, they claimed to have had a bad experience with the previous Board and had decided to black-list the Premier League. The Managing Director at the time, Mr. Khoury was very honest and told me they had not even considered the sponsorship of football in their 2011 budget. However, after about 10 visits to their Head-quarters and climbing the long stairs, I eventually succeeded in convincing him of our sincerity and eventually got the nod that they would give us the one hundred million Leones for the one round league for the 2011 season. This was a huge success and ignited the interest from the other Board members.

Mercury Internationally had never been involved in the Premier League but by virtue of my relationship with them, they had expressed willingness to consider some form of support and after meeting with the Board they agreed to come in as associate sponsor for the 2011 league and to complement the Lead Sponsors Africell.

Sierra Leone Commercial Bank could not come on Board as an associate sponsor but gave us a token donation of five million Leones.

In preparation for the 2011-12 season we were faced with serious difficulties in acquiring sponsorship but again the two saviours from the 2011 league were willing to support our cause.

Our budget for a League we wanted to be special and competitive with our neighbours was just over Le 850 million. Mercury expressed willingness to come on Board with Le 200 million without any conditions.

Africell offered Le 180 million but unfortunately their conditions was considered hard to meet by the Board for that amount of money. In a discussion with the FA Executive it was discussed and they agreed with us that we could not accept the offer from the Lead sponsor of the previous two leagues, but however appealed that we continued negotiations. Regrettably their budget could not accommodate any more and the Board had the difficult decision of cancelling the partnership for the League but maintained a wonderful relationship and the doors remained open for the future.

Sierra Leone Commercial Bank again pledged a token support of Le 10 million. The truth is our policies have not made it enticing enough for Corporate houses to come on Board in Sierra Leone particularly and Africa in general.


If examined thoroughly, one can discover that very few leagues in Africa, as in the case with the Kenya Premier League, have been able to enjoy corporate social support and funding unlike in Europe and Asia. The reason in my view is the lack of tax rebate in exchange of corporate sponsorship. If the law would allow a percentage of charity done through corporate sponsorship to be reclaimed from the annual taxes, more companies would be enticed to get involved and it will create a significant impression of the premium Government is placing on corporate social responsibility.

The experience relating to sponsorship was frustrating and left an impression that there is need for urgent introduction of a sports policy which will provide some stimulant for Companies to be willing to associate, or else the growth of sports in general and football in particular will continue to face major obstacles.

The Premier League Clubs:

The Clubs are the biggest contributors to a successful League because they have very little sponsorship, with the exception of a few, but yet provide the players, administrators and coaches. They have so much passion for the game and get very little encouragement from society at large and the FA as a whole. Their only motivation is the passion they have for football and that love for the beautiful game sometimes is at the detriment of their families. What makes it worse is that over the years, selfish, corrupt and unpatriotic individuals charged with the responsibility of controlling football in the country, have frustrated the efforts of those that could afford to support these clubs and structure them well. This has left a vacuum in most clubs to be able to establish the structures and acquire the funding required to adequately develop a Premier League club.

In my view and based not only on my PLB experience but my 25 years in Football administration, I believe the FA should invest on clubs officials and help them re-structure. It should endeavour to search for ways of associating these clubs with major sponsorship so as to enable their development and growth. Another difficult but absolutely necessary development is to find ways of the teams owning or leasing their own grounds for home matches. It will help them acquire community support/belonging and have actual derbies like in other parts of the world

It is not a short term plan and may take more than a decade to achieve, but it is an achievable project if properly prepared and we could see these clubs attaining the status of their counterparts in West Africa and beyond.

Match officials:

I have always been very supportive of match officials and believe that like their colleagues in other parts of the world, they have never been given the respect they deserve. I do not believe they are all corrupt, and though I would not rule out corruption, yet I believe their efforts have been commendable and where there has been a blunder, it is most times caused by human errors rather than, as believed by many, the desire to cheat.

However one advice I would proffer is for the referees committee to be more regionally balanced to ensure everyone is identified on merit and given an opportunity. It was sad to see an entire League completed with only one Referee from Kenema District and three from Bo District involved because of some dispute with the acting Chairman of a Referee’s committee appointed by The FA Executive. Had their Regions been represented in the committee the problem would have been averted.

It is also important for the FA to invest on more courses for referees throughout the country and opportunities given to them in forms of scholarships to pursue educational degrees up

to University level. It will help them grow and develop to instructors and/or match commissioners, and investing in their education will mean helping them interpret the rules better and maybe, just maybe, one or two of them will eventually belong to FIFA or CAF’s referees committee and ensure that our best are considered for International Competitions.

The Media:

The media has a major role in the promotion of the Premier League and our success was visible because of the support we received from the media. Their contribution was tremendous and it helped promote the League not only in Sierra Leone but world-wide with over 12 Websites reporting on the Premier League throughout. It was even with their help that www.soccerway.com and www.sierraleonefootball.com published all scores, fixtures and tables, giving our league international recognition.

My Resignation:

Many have enquired as to why I resigned as Chairman of the PLB and to them all I have said in simple terms, it was in the interest of football. It became impossible to carry on and all my efforts and sacrifice to ensure the Premier League succeeded were never appreciated. It was a very hard decision and one I delayed for long hoping that I would be allowed to do the job I was given.

The end had to come and the final straw was on my wedding anniversary on the 16th December, a time I was to spend with my wife, and a day I was to cherish and enjoy with fund memories.

Yet it was disturbed by a series of events and when I confirmed that the FA Executive had offered my position to no less than three people, it was obvious my presence as Chairman was no longer with the support of the Executive. On that same day, a series of events unfolded which all confirmed my view and which could have been unfortunate for the Premier League. It was then I decided to resign in the interest of the game and in belief my departure would open the options for the Executive to appoint their choice with no ambition to contest for position.

Summary:

In summary let me say that the appointment was an opportunity for me to serve the Nation and in particular the Premier League Clubs. I learnt a lot from the experience and enjoyed tremendous recognition within and beyond Sierra Leone. It however was an experience that took a lot of my precious time and sacrifice, financial involvement especially the cost of fuel and other expenditure to attend meetings and football matches around the country, a lot of patience and tolerance, and a lot of humiliation when some were not happy with the decisions.

However there was always one factor that spurred me on and that was my belief that I could help improve the Premier League and provide it a status deserving of such a league.

I believe we succeeded, but I also believe we could have done better if the atmosphere had remained convenient for all parties.

I have never regretted accepting the appointment, neither have I regretted the manner with which The Board handled issues, and definitely have not and will not regret resigning at the time I did. I believe all the decisions taken were right at the time they were taken, and the whole experience will help me in the years to come, and in some other capacity. My sincere best wishes to the newly appointed Board and my pledge to support them always.

To post a comment please Register or Login