Liberia’s Lone Representative On Mission in Cali

Liberia's sprinter, Lassana Tarawally, left  Liberia on Saturday on a mission for a ‘medal’ in the 2022 World Athletics U20 Championships, also known as the World Junior Championships.

Trawally was selected by the Liberia Athletics Federation (LAF), the governing local body of athletics or track and field in Liberia.  The 2022 World Athletics U20 Championships will be held from 1 to 6 August at the Estadio Olímpico Pascual Guerrero in Cali, Colombia.

The junior athlete will be representing Liberia in the 100m race. The team leader for the Championships in Cali is former head coach and current Secretary General of LAF, Samuel Choko Cooper.

The 2022 World Athletics U20 Championships is an international athletics competition for athletes qualifying as juniors (born no earlier than 1 January 2003). Cali has previously hosted the 2015 World Youth Championships in Athletics.

Meanwhile, the LAF said it is very grateful with the overwhelming support it received from the Government of Liberia and the general public on the just ended World Championship in Oregon, USA.

At the same time, the LAF has clarified that it has never entered nor negotiated any image rights or promotion deal for any of its athletes. 

“These things are handled directly by the athlete via his or her hired agent. The Federation has absolutely nothing to do with selling the image of any athlete for raising funds,” the LAF said. 

“The LAF has been reliably informed that one Mr. Edwin Fahnbulleh is distributing and selling the image of athlete Joseph Fahnbulleh, claiming that the proceeds will be provided to the Federation to raise more athletes.”

The LAF added: “This is a surprise and complete news to the LAF. There has been no time and will be no time that the Federation will negotiate personal image rights for any of its athletes; especially without an expressed consent.”

The LAF furthered that pursuant to the above, it wishes to inform the public that it has nothing to do with Edwin’s publication and is asking him to discontinue his action.