Veteran star striker Mohamed Kallon arrived in Tunis on Tuesday night, on the day Sierra Leone’s Sports Minister Paul Kamara, announced on a live local radio programme that he has dropped the player from the Leone Stars squad to face Tunisia in Monastir on Saturday.
Minister Kamara said Kallon would not be available for the 2013 Nations Cup qualifier because he failed to meet the deadline date for the arrival of players in Tunis.
But the 33-year old former Inter Milan and Monaco forward showed up at the El Mouradi Gammarth hotel in Tunis where the team were staying before four foreign-based players who were due to join the camp on Wednesday, the day the team departed for the venue of the match Monastir.
Kallon said he was surprised to learn from representatives of Sports Writers Association of Sierra Leone (SWASAL) in Tunis that the minister had made such a pronouncement on radio.
He said: “It’s a surprise to me to learn that Minister Kamara had made such a statement because I didn’t do anything wrong,” adding that “Perhaps there must be a misunderstanding somewhere.”
“What I know is that I was told on Friday to travel on Saturday night to Tunis from Freetown with other people but it was not possible for me because I had already had an arrangement with my wife, who was travelling to Freetown to London to pick her up at the airport,” Kallon explains.
“So I asked that my flight be re-scheduled for Tuesday but they told me that it was not possible and the only flight available was for tomorrow Thursday.
But before making such a suggestion to them, I had already made enquiries from the airline and they told me there was a flight on Tuesday but with a different route. So I had to buy a ticket with my money to fly to Tunisia and here I’m in Tunis.”
“I love playing for my country and everybody knows that. I want us to qualify for the Nations Cup and I want us to be part of that history.”
Leone Stars technical team headed by Lars Olof Mattsson was not aware of any such decision to drop Kallon and he was expecting the arrival of the experienced star player, who is set to be part of Leone Stars’ 18-man squad to face the Tunisians.
Meanwhile Finland-based goalkeeper Unisa Bangura also showed up in Tunis on Tuesday night.
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