By Sallieu T. Kamara
Football all over the world has proven to be an effective tool to empower, inspire and unite people and communities, no matter their social and cultural differences. Football also has the potential to promote peace. A famous case in point is when former football captain of Cote d’Ivoire, Didier Drogba, secured a temporary truce during his country’s long-running conflict in 2007. The truce allowed the national football team, the Elephants, to play their African Nations Cup qualifiers in the opposition-held territory of the country. Thousands of football-loving fans turned up to the stadium to watch the match. That’s the power of the beautiful game.
But it does not appear to be the case here in Sierra Leone where the administrators of football, especially in recent times, have subjected the game to unending internal conflicts. What Sierra Leoneans are experiencing today is the complete opposite of the good things that are associated with football. Rather than empower and inspire our young people who are immensely talented in the game, it disempowers and demotivates them even more.
Even by not allowing football to play in the country, they are limiting the opportunities for these young people and depriving the football crazy population of their leisure. Also, rather than unite football stakeholders who toil on a daily basis and invest their hard-earned monies into the game, it continues to tear them apart and set them against each other. Today, football in Sierra Leone is under siege. It’s neither here nor there.
It’s, however, worthy to note that the problems troubling the growth of football in the country are not new and are also not beyond resolution, if only the stakeholders are serious about addressing them. These problems have been around football for some years now. The major difference that I see between then and now is that in the good old days, the administration and management of football was in the hands of those who were truly in the business of football and who genuinely loved the game. The administrators of football clubs, including club secretaries, team managers and chairpersons, among others were at the heart of football administration in those days. They constituted the SLFA Organizing Committee, which was tasked with the responsibility to organize football leagues and tournaments (local and international), deliberate on all issues affecting the beautiful game and take critical decisions in the best interest of the game and the country. It wasn’t one hundred percent perfect, but there was harmony among football stakeholders, effective football competitions were organized across the country even during the rebel war and elections were held regularly without serious untoward incidents and outcomes accepted.
Another striking difference is that whilst the football administrators then did not run the SLFA as an appendage of the football world governing body, FIFA, and guarded it strongly against eroding its independence and sovereignty, the SLFA under Madam Isha Johansen is tied tightly to the apron strings of FIFA – even if more and more adrift from the national stakeholders including the players of the game themselves. It’s FIFA who now decide what the SLFA should or shouldn’t do. Even mundane issues that the FA should take action on are referred to the “Almighty FIFA” first for them to give directives. This has been the trend since Madam Isha Johansen was hoisted on the stage as the SLFA president under murky circumstances.
It doesn’t, therefore, come as a surprise to some football enthusiasts who have been following closely the unfolding events in the country’s football landscape that Madam Isha Johannsen and her executive have been so enmeshed in serving FIFA that they have forgotten to serve the football-loving people of Sierra Leone, who must be their primary interest and from whom they derived their mandate albeit, I repeat, murkily.
Since Madam Isha became president of the FA in 2013, effective football competition has not played on our football turfs across the country, save for 2019/2020 football season when Mr Emmanuel Saffa Abdulai, as chairman of the Premier League Board, organized one of the finest football seasons ever in the history of the country. But guess what? Mr Emmanuel Saffa Abdulai was replaced immediately after the league ended rather than rewarded for succeeding where many others before him had failed. This makes me believe that Madam Isha Johansen and her team are not so much interested in seeing local football play and well-run football competitions take place in the country. Rather, their interest is in doing everything within their capability to continue to perch on the SLFA as long as it takes, in order to continue to capture the limelight that goes along with it. The fact that Madam Isha is not bothered about the lack of football activities in the country for many years now is indicative of her contentment with the way things are. Is it that she’s deriving pleasure or personal benefits from the present state of affairs of football in the country that the public does not know about?
Despite this monumental failure to organize effective football leagues in the country and to restore love and harmony in the football family for almost eight years running, Madam Isha Johansen is up at it again as SLFA elections are around the corner. She’s now seen and heard all over the place drumming her chest as the “Special One” who has come to rescue the sinking ship of Sierra Leone’s football and its crew. I only wonder how she’s going to do it. Again, the issue of “ethics” has resurfaced as it always does ahead of SLFA elections, courtesy of the ALL POWERFUL AND NEVER ERRING F.I.F.A. Inasmuch as doing background checks on people who are vying for public offices is good, it should not be seen to be used as a tool to eliminate some in order to protect others. That in itself is a serious ethical issue.
Some members of the football family in Sierra Leone believe the introduction of ethics or an Ethics Committee in the SLFA electoral process was mainly to create an avenue where candidates who are seen to be undefeatable by the “FIFA Anointed One” will be easily and sometimes controversially eliminated. If I may ask, who make up the SLFA Ethics Committee? How are members of the Committee appointed or selected or elected? How ethical are they? And who are they answerable to? These are moral, ethical questions we should not shy away from asking and to which the FA must provide answers. Let’s not forget, people say it’s very hard for the bush to hide behind the palm tree.
If the Madam Isha Johansen-led SLFA is truly and genuinely serious about morals and ethics, what’s more morally unethical than to allow yourself to be imposed on people the vast majority of whom repeatedly make it very clear that they will not work with you because the process that brought you to the realm was unequivocally flawed? If that is not enough reason for one to resign, what about the fact that the FA has not been able to organize effective football competition in the whole country for almost eight years, but its head never misses a single opportunity to attend CAF and FIFA events abroad? Again, the fact that for almost eight long years Madam Isha Johansen has not been able or has been unwilling to unite the football family in the country shows she’s not the rescuer or saviour she professes to be. Again, some people within the football family believe Madam Isha has so far not demonstrated enough traits of a good leader. Good leaders don’t allow their emotions to override their corporate decisions and they are also able to assemble teams of people with different backgrounds and persuasions with the purpose of working towards the achievement of their set goals. They abhor the “divide and rule” approach to management and they don’t harbour grudges, especially against people they are working with. If Madam Isha Johansen cannot shape up in eight years, let her ship out because the longer she continues to stay as head of the SLFA, the deeper Sierra Leone’s football will continue to submerge.
To the SLFA delegates, the time has come once again for you to decide. The SLFA elections are scheduled for 26 and 27 February 2021 in Makeni. If everything goes well and as planned, we will have a new SLFA executive or the mandate of the present executive will have been renewed by the time you conclude your deliberations there. You have enormous responsibility in your hands to either remake or further break the already fragile future of football in the country. I was once in the position where all of you are in today – as a member of the SLFA Organizing Committee and Secretary General of Wellington People FC. And I used to advise my colleagues during elections of the FA not to vote for beer and stout. I won’t say this for you because the game don babala. It has gone beyond beer and stout. Time has really changed. Nowadays, we talk not about beer and stout, but about dollars and other foreign currencies and overseas trips, which are compellingly and understandably more attractive.
But what I will say to you our honoured delegates is this: go out there and vote your consciences. What you do in Makeni will ever remain to impact you and the nation and you personally, negatively or positively, for the rest of your lives. As you cast your vote, remember that that vote of yours has the potential to destroy a whole generation of football talents or inspire the next generation of footballers in the country. It could even be your own children. I am directing this to all the delegates, but more specifically to representatives of professional associations affiliated to SLFA such as referees, veterans and coaches who almost always are averse to the position of club football administrators (referred to here as the stakeholders). I know it’s always good to have money because it’s a means to an end, but it’s never an end in itself. So, my good people don’t sell your votes in whatever shape or form. I wish you a thoughtful and conclusive congress.
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