MONROVIA, Liberia – Nearly nine months after halting all sporting activities due to the Ebola outbreak, Liberia will this year host its annual sports tournament in the midst of a declining Ebola virus disease.

Announcing the resumption of the yearly  National County Sports Meet Tournament, Youth and Sports Minister Eugene Nagbe maintained that Ebola will not hold back all of Liberia’s activities and that the ministry is tentatively eyeing March to kickoff the nation’s largest sporting  festival.

“This year, unfortunately we did not get any funding from the national budget for the National County Meet but we will host the [event] because Ebola is subsiding,” the minister told reporters at the Ministry of Information daily press briefing on Wednesday morning.

According to Nagbe, the ministry is now holding discussions with private sponsors in a bid to actualize the successful holding of the tournament in the country.

He also announced the relocation of the final match venue from Monrovia to Buchannan City in Grand Bassa County.

Continued Nagbe: “We have to carry on our national activities. We cannot allow Ebola to prevent us. So we are carrying on the National County Sports Meet in spite of the lack of budgetary appropriations.”

In June 2014, Liberia suspended all sporting activities in an effort to control the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. But earlier January 2015, the Liberia Football Association (LFPA) lifted the ban to pave way for the country’s domestic leagues to continue after the number of Ebola cases reduced significantly.

“The teams are encouraged to observe all preventive measures as directed by the Ministry of Health, including hand washing and the taking of temperature at practice and football venues,” Henry Flomo, Director of Communications at the LFA told Bloomberg news in January this year.

Featured image courtesy of Ken Harper