‘New management of Western United has authority’
The founders of the Western United FC club finally speak out after war of words by critics and the current Western United FC management and franchise owner over the past weeks.
The founders made clarifications following criticisms over the inclusion of players from other provinces into the Western United FC team for the fourth Telekom S-league season.
Critics have rubbished the move by Reginald Douglas of Douglas Concrete to remove Western provincial players from the team.
They said the Western United team is no longer a club for Western provincial players to develop and harness their skills because it was taken over by Honiara based players most of whom are handpicked by the new management.
They claimed this was outrageous and a slap on the face of the founders of the club who initially established the club with the purpose to use it as a platform to expose provincial based players from the province.
But speaking on behalf of the founders, Nelson Boso stated in the club’s Facebook page that the founders have transferred everything to the current franchise owner under an agreement.
He stressed that one of the motivating factors for creating the club was to give an opportunity to young Western players, Western administrators, Western fans and supporters to develop their footballing skills, their administrative skills as well as the social unity skills of Western Province, all for the name of nationalism.
“I will speak for the founding members.
“The founding members, through an MOU, have partnered with Western Province Government (representing the people) to develop the club.
“We welcome the interest of franchise for the development of the team, for this we have no issue with Douglas Concrete.
“We believe national peace can be bred and sustained from a football pitch. On a more technical point, we believe Westerners can be very good footballers if developed.
“To cut matters short, the club cannot be sustained by the single effort of individual Westerners.
“It must be team plus corporate support. I can understand the passion as voiced through the sentiments of Westerners in Honiara, and I also understand the rebuff form Falimae Jr Dandan representing Douglas Concrete.”
He added one of the founding members at the first founding meeting at Heritage Park Hotel on December 29, 2010 is Judah Saepeja who now works for the same franchise owner.
“I would like to see a conglomeration of these founding members, the current franchise owner’s representative and any fan leaders to work together for the success of the team this season,” he stated.
By CARLOS ARUAFU
