By Ibrahim Karim Bangura (Tanko)

It is unbelievable that the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) has appointed a caretaker technical team to take charge of the country’s male senior national team Leone Stars ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026 qualifiers.

Amidu Karim substitutes John Keister in the hot-seat as Leone Stars head coach.

Francis Zappa Koroma (Old Edwardians) and Alhaji Abedi Foray (Bo Rangers) will serve as Assistant 1&2 to Amidu Karim respectively.

Francis Zappa Koroma has had an unsuccessful spell with East End Lions for the 2022/23 season having shown some poor stats as dugout lead with the country’s most successful football club on paper.

His failure to produce results prompted to mutually part ways with the club halfway of the season before eventually joining Old Edwardians mid-season for the remainder of the 2022/23 League campaign.

Alhaji Foray has twice won the Sierra Leone Premier League as Assistant Coach and Head Coach of Bo Rangers for the 2021/22 and 2022/23 seasons respectively.

The gaffer is unarguably the best dugout lead in the Sierra Leone Premier League for the season ended 2022/23, winning the country’s top-flight league title 34 games unbeaten, marking the highest winning streak and longest unbeaten run as a coach in the country’s entire league history.

Alhaji Foray is and still the first coach to have led Bo Rangers at the continent’s inter club competition, CAF Champions League on two previous consecutive occasions though he was unfortunate to reach the expectations of fans.

However, both Francis Zappa Koroma and Alhaji Abedi Foray had also previously managed Kamboi Eagles in separate seasons in the past.

Meanwhile, Amidu Karim had previously served as Assistant Coach 1 during John Keister’s reign as Leone Stars head coach marking a 3 years reign since 2020.

He was part of Leone Stars historic AFCON triumph, qualifying the country to the AFCON 2021 in Cameroon as the first local coaches while ending a 25-year wait since 1996 in the continent’s biggest football platform.

Before his appointment with the national team, Amidu Karim was head coach of FC Kallon in the Sierra Leone Premier League.

But, football pundits at home and aboard are in doubt of Amidu Karim and his backroom staff because their appointment is to make the difference in the upcoming campaigns and many have already raised concern regarding their international exposure in terms of standards in global soccer.