By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
This weekend, as football stakeholders head to the northern city of Port Loko, the question many will be asking is this: “Can this congress fix football in Sierra Leone?”
Probably it won’t, at least not on its own, because the rot in football in this country is so deep that we may need to cut off a part for the body to survive- and we will get to that. But for now, what this congress is, is a chance to set things right between the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) Executive Committee and the entire membership of the FA.
This is the first of three congresses that will be held by the SLFA for its membership in the coming months.
Now, this meeting can be the empty slate for a fresh start or it can be the normal Isha Johansen v Stakeholders script that has nothing else as a plot than drama. Either way, the fate of football is up in the air. And it may land properly or awkwardly in Port Loko.
The FA has plotted a course and they aim to stir the ship till it gets to its destination - elections. To get to that direction right, they’ve bought themselves six months more in office, which ends on the 18th of April, 2020. By that time Johansen would have spent 987 days over her original 4 years mandate as President of the SLFA.
The politics behind this congress
This is the third time the SLFA is attempting to hold a congress, the first two weren’t a success. But a third time is a charm as they say, and this better be.
Port Loko itself is an interesting destination. These days this northern district is part of a growing number of places that are slowly forming a Johansen coalition. The botched attempt to give the Northern teams “unfair” advantage to play in the Premier League has bought more goodwill for Johansen’s administration in this part of the country.
Members of the Executive Committee of the FA have told Politico that this meeting is about adopting a new code of ethics into the revised SLFA statutes. Whiles this may be the focus, a lot more could be up for debate.
The Stakeholders, a group of well-known anti-Johansen faction, have expressed concerns about the agenda of this congress. Though they are committed to attending the congress, there is no guarantee that the whole meeting might not get rowdy over disagreements from the first day of the congress.
A fragile coalition?
Underneath this congress is a possible show of strength. With just four months away from a possible election, Johansen and the Stakeholders might decide to flex their muscles and see who has control over the 47 delegates who will be in the hall in Port Loko.
There are talks that the Rodney Michael (a former SLFA Presidential aspirant) coalition, which was built when he was running in 2013, is now fragile. But an insider of that old coalition told Politico: “that is not the case.”
Now, if that coalition is strong or weak, the signs will show in Port Loko. But it’s not just about showing the strength of the coalition this weekend, it is also about keeping it together until the elections.
There are members of the Rodney coalition who are now accompanying the national team to places and getting few million Leones in travelling allowances. All this, courtesy of Johansen. So, the temptation of others jumping ship to camp Johansen is very real.
Isha Johansen herself
The noise of this congress has been muzzled a bit by the start of the Premier League. On Wednesday, FC Johansen held Mighty Blackpool to a 1-1 draw in front of a decent crowd at the National Stadium.
Last weekend during the launch of the Sierra Leone Premier League at Radisson Blu Mammy Yoko hotel, Isha Johansen was having a moment which was caught on camera. She sat there at the table in front of the room, hands folded as if to support her cheek whiles gazing. In her head she was probably absorbing the moment or was wandering what is ahead of her in the coming months.
Johansen was in a room full of people who would decide her future in football in four months’ time. By the end of the night she didn’t leave that room without taking a swipe at them.
“Football over the years in Sierra Leone has been about what and how a few selected people see football to be and how they want to govern it. And you see the time has now come for reality. Reality is kicking in…,” she said.
She later added: “You see sometimes in life things need to get really bad before it gets better. I think in football we have got to the stage now where we’ve pushed ourselves to the wall and we cannot go through the wall. So, we come back, and here we are sitting together facing each other ready to play good, honest football with integrity.”
Those words were swallowed by that crowd in that hotel room at Radisson Blu Mammy Yoko. But be sure some of them haven’t digested it. Like a ruminant, they will regurgitate it and use it against her someday. Because, like Johansen, they also share the same bitterness about happenings in football over the last five years and they blame her for it.
There is no telling how this weekend’s congress might go. Concerns or challenges haven’t been confrontational so far, at least not in the public gaze. But this might be the calm before the storm.
For the sake of football, you will hope sanity prevails but if it doesn’t, then the congress that is supposed to fix football could end up wrecking it, for the third time.
Copyright (c) 2019 Politico Online
