SWAL Elects New Officials for Two Years

       Liberiansoccer.com Roland Mulbah, Secretary General-elect


Written by Danesius Marteh


Sunday, 04 December 2011 22:52

The Sports Writers Association of Liberia (SWAL) has a new leadership following a tense election at the Press Union of Liberia (PUL) headquarters on December 1.


Fombah Kanneh, President-elect

Vice President Fombah Kanneh defeated Michael Weah of Radio Veritas, ex-vice president Louis Kolnoe of Truth FM and Real TV and Secretary-general Webster D. Cassell of Inquirer newspaper in the presidential race.

Kanneh got 38 votes with 28 votes for Michael (who lost in the same race to LFA communications director Henry Flomo then of ELBC almost 10 years ago), 17 votes for Webster and one vote for Louis.



Martina E. Brooks, Vice President-elect

UNMIL Radio’s Martina E. Brooks, dubbed as SWAL’s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, beat ELBC’s Moses Kollie Garzewu and Daily Observer’s Leroy M. Sonpon, III for the vice presidency.

Brooks, who becomes the association’s first female vice president, obtained 43 votes while Garzewu and Sonpon received 28 and 13 votes respectively.

Assistant Secretary General Roland M. Mulbah of Liberiansoccer.com , Champions Sports and KickOff Sports newspapers defeated ELBC’s Kolubah B. K. Zazay and Danesius Marteh of FrontPageAfrica newspaper to become Secretary-General-elect. Mulbah tallied 54 votes while Zazay and Marteh received 16 and 12 votes respectively.

Anthony Acarous Stephens of Radio Veritas, who went unopposed following the failure of Akoi Dakala of the Liberia Media Center to process his registration paper in time for the elections, received 66 votes.



Roland Mulbah, Secretary General-elect

And New Republic newspaper’s Momoh B. Siryon beat Siafa Boakai of Stone FM in Firestone, Margibi County by 46 to 30 votes to become treasurer-elect. Adhoc elections commission chairman Momolu V. O. Sirleaf said there were 84 valid votes and two invalid votes respectively, putting the total number of electorates at 86.

Meanwhile, Kanneh has promised to make reconciliation the hallmark of his administration. The Power FM/TV sports editors, who addressed reporters minutes after the final results were certified, said the attending effects of the elections have left bitter feelings, which must be healed in order to take SWAL to another level.

Kanneh commended campaign manager Francis Palaynah of Sky 107 FM and his family for the confidence reposed in him to enter the race and to the electorates for electing the ‘youngest person to serve noble SWAL’.

But he felt short of naming and shaming some of his supporters (Sonpon, Mulbah and Stephens), who engaged into an unorthodox style of campaigning in SWAL’s elections history by branding Danesius, Louis, Martina, Webster and Moses as the Liberia Football Association’s (LFA) sponsored candidates.



Anthony Stephens, Assistant Secretary General-elect

“I'm not the president for those that elected me [but] I am president for all sports writers in this country. Reconciliation is going to be paramount on our agenda. We are going to reach out to our colleagues because this election we had some problems down the line. With the political situation, crisscrossing area to get votes was difficult.

“I know we had some problems. But trust me as president-elect; I will do whatever I can do to reconcile our association. Reconciliation will be our target. And we are going to work on capacity-building and empowerment. We are going to focus on decentralizing this association to make it Liberia-based instead of being a Monrovia-based.

“I think we need to graduate from the stage of just being a football writer association. We need to live-up to the true meaning of the Sports Writers Association of Liberia. I don’t have all of the ideas but we can do it together,” Kanneh said with Palaynah raising ‘the more we are together; the happy we will be’ chorus of SWAL.



Momoh Siryon, Treasurer-elect

The outgoing leadership has said that the inauguration and the 26th anniversary celebration will be held on the same day but no date has been announced.

At the same time, the presidents of first division newcomers FC Fassell and knock-out champions and premiership runners-up Barrack Young Controllers have congratulated the officers-elect of SWAL.

Cassell Kuoh and Sekou Konneh acknowledged the immense contribution of sports writers and promised to always involve them in all of their undertakings to promote football.

Kuoh’s message was posted by his public relations officer Pawala Janyan on the social networking site Facebook on December 2 while Konneh was remarking on Truth FM’s Sports Talk program on December