Coach Dimitar Pantev has just won the Cameroon Elite One League with Victoria United (Opopo) this week, after playing the MTN Elite One Play Offs 2024. The Limbe based team played a 2-2 draw with Stade Renard to move to 13 points, the most on the general classification for the season, and were declared champions for the 2023-2024 league season.
Coach Dimitar achieved this success in just 2 months after taking over the team. The Bulgarian Coach was FC Johansen’s head coach for the second rounds of the 2022-2023 Sierra Leone Premier League Season. He came in with lots of experience and determination to elevate FC Johansen, unfortunately, he did not succeed in what is widely believed to be a ploy to ruin the club’s dream by the football officials in the country.
Despite bringing in an experienced coach from abroad and 3 top-flight Ghanaian players, FC Johansen was targeted and eventually relegated to the Division One League. Corruption, poor officiating and match manipulation ruined Johansen’s league campaign.
Dimitar’s latest championship has affirmed his professionalism and has further vindicated him from his ‘supposed abysmal performance’ with FC Johansen. The reality is now in the open that the football atmosphere in Sierra Leone is toxic and unproductive, marred with corruption, poor officiating, match manipulation, violence, and maladministration. This makes it difficult for decent professionals to thrive and excel. Dimitar Pantev’s case is a clear example of this reality. When he gets to a decent footballing society, he’s able to compete fairly and excel, which was impossible in Sierra Leone.
During his time as Head Coach of FC Johansen, match officials awarded 6 penalties against Johansen, 5 of which came in after the 85th minute; disallowed 7 genuine goals, plus several red cards and non-awarded penalties for Johansen. In a match against Kamboi Eagles, a Johansen right back was horribly tackled in the Eagles’ 18-yard box which left his left foot broken. No penalty awarded by the referee, nor was the culprit penalised. All of these happened in the last 10 matches of the 2022-2023 league season.
In another match, Coach Dimitar protested against poor officiating, which resulted in the Premier League Board suspending him for 3 matches. It was all clear that there was an orchestrated mission to see the back of FC Johansen, to the point that top and middle table teams were abandoning matches to unfairly award undeserving ‘3 point and 3 goals’ to teams battling relegation in the final matches in the league. Teams of certain football authorities were saved at the expense of FC Johansen.
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