By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
“Welcome to Kenema”, the signpost just after Bandama checkpoint reads. What the signpost doesn’t tell you is how bad and dusty the road network is in the city. You hear or see the complaints through the media, but you don’t know the scale of the problem, until you get here. This city deserves better. But this is a topic for another day.
“Conclusive” and “Successful” are the two words coming out of the Sierra Leone Football Association in describing the Extra Ordinary Congress that was held in the city last weekend.
But those two words are far away from describing the reality of what happened at Albertson Hotel, the venue of the meeting.
It's just passed 1:30pm and delegates, observers and journalists were all arriving to attend the meeting. Benjamin Gordon, Secretary General of Western Area Football Association and Mohamed Gwen Freeman, Referees Manager, opened the day with a brawl. That fight set the tone of the proceedings proper, because, as it turned out, that wasn't the last fight of the day.
Shortly after, SLFA Presidential hopeful, Rodney Michael arrived. He was sent away without even entering the premises. The man who came with that news, Joseph Toby, said: “I have been instructed by the General Secretary to tell you that you cannot attend the congress because you are under suspension.”
Without a protest, Mr Micheal went home.
At the other end of the street were some journalists who are also not allowed to enter, for reasons best known to the FA.
For someone who was preaching unity just 48 hours earlier at a press conference with UEFA officials, this is how Isha Johansen's FA was showing it. In the thick of it all was Christopher Kamara, the SLFA General Secretary.
Like always, that congress started with passionate speeches from the Minister of Sports, Johansen herself and representatives of the host district.
President of the KDFA (Kenema District Football Association), Dennis G. Lansana, praised his district’s “prowess” in promoting football.
“Kenema District Football Association is one of the most formidable association in Sierra Leone,” Lansana said.
Hours before Lansana took to the stage, some members of his association had already been muttering mutiny against him. Whether they would succeed, that is a matter of wait-and-see. But if there were talks about mutiny, then you know there is a problem.
The Congress proceedings started proper when delegates came back from lunch.
First order of business - Chris Kamara asked the media out. Perhaps these are laid down protocols for football congress, but it defies the logic of transparency.
How can you entertain Observers, but the media cannot be an observer at the most high-profile football gathering? Question for another day maybe.
This congress was always going to be contentious, because it is directly connected to the upcoming elections in April. There were two controversies here. The first one was on the budget and the second was on the names of nominees for the committees.
I have read through the budget and you would understand why some members were against it. This is partly because it sounds ridiculous when you are paying US$40,000 for the SLFA’s Accounting Software and then you are giving just US$10, 000 to regional bodies every quarter.
One FA member described the budget as “not program driven” or “progressive”.
Nonetheless, under some very controversial circumstances, the vote passed.
But perhaps this wasn’t even as controversial as the approval of the committees. It was a stalemate, with one side of the room shouting: “we should nominate and approve” whiles the other side saying: “no, nominations have already been done and so we should just move to approve.”
How it ended? Abruptly and in a brawl.
These are the circumstances surrounding what the FA is describing as “Conclusive” and “Successful”. Our understanding of these two English words might just not be the same.
In the aftermath of the congress team owners are threating to withdraw their teams from the Premier League. They are also threatening court action and calling on the Anti-Corruption Commission once again to investigate the FA.
Mudege’s controversy
The FIFA representative at the congress, Solomon Mudege, has also come under scrutiny for his role in “meddling into the SLFA politics”. Mudege could have avoided all this controversy if his comments didn’t support any of the factions.
Mudege was accused of advising the congress to adopt the list of names that the FA was presenting, this was so despite strong opposition in the hall.
He also affirmed Isha Johansen's claim of fixing up the artificial turf in Kenema. In his defense, it was hard for him not to comment on this because he is directly responsible for projects like these at FIFA. So perhaps his comments on this front was innocent and not meant to promote Johansen’s campaign.
But he could have avoided all the criticism he is getting now.
Here is how: When Alexander Gros represented FIFA in the Port Loko congress in December, there was a critical issue on whether Falaba and Karene, North West region should be added to the certified delegate list. The reason why that was controversial is that there is an agreement in place that the 47-man delegate list cannot be tampered with.
When Gros weighed in on the argument, he said even though they (FIFA) certified the list, they were open to the idea of adding new delegates on the list, but only if the Congress decided to.
And Gros went to Zurich without any controversy. Maybe he didn’t share his notes with Mudege.
Now Mudege is about to get some heat when he returns to FIFA and he might not return here anytime soon, not even on a vacation.
So, what now?
After the Port Loko Congress, there was a genuine feeling of satisfaction from all sides. That congress was equally heated, but it was also "conclusive".
If we use the Port Loko Congress as our yard stick to describe a successful congress, then the Kenema congress was far from successful.
The FA is trying to sanitize the truth. The movie you are about to watch might be a rehash of the 2013 SLFA elections unfolding before our eyes all over again, and this time it’s on HD, in front of a grand audience.
So, what happens now?
Here are few options for members who are left aggrieved by this congress.
Firstly, they can boycott the league and get government to pay attention once again to what is happening in football. But the consequences of this will be catastrophic, because the young men who have chosen football as a career would be caught in the crossfire, yet again.
Only God knows during that four and half year wait how many careers were wasted or ended.
The financial loss alone could send teams into bankruptcy. This season alone gate taking have raked hundreds of millions of Leones. But even at this, some teams are barely managing to generate their running cost.
Option number two; they can file a civil suit and petition the whole congress and hope the court order that the congress be done “properly”. If they get a ruling in their favor it would automatically mean that the FA would not be able to spend a single dime of their budget and it would effectively cripple them.
An injunction could also be sought for the Elective congress. If they succeed FIFA would be forced to set up a Normalization Committee to take charge of football. This will neutralize Johansen’s influence in future elections.
But this could also be counterproductive because Johansen is one of FIFA’s own and there might not be any difference from the current committees and a future Normalization committee. Her hold on power might just continue.
And another court action might just extend Johansen’s term by default anyway.
However, anyone who takes the FA to court should be ready for a possible FIFA ban, because FIFA will say they should have used an internal redress mechanism, even though we know there is none at the FA presently.
The third option will be for them to wait it out, lick their wounds, strategize, do nothing to obstruct this process and bet on the April election. If they have as much vote as they claim, then this shouldn’t be a problem. But this way they will be skating on a thin ice here; it’s extremely risky, because if Johansen somehow come through the Elective congress victorious, it will mean she is guaranteed to run football till 2024.
These are all worrying scenarios for football in Sierra Leone.
But in soliloquy, you will have to ask for the umpteenth time: “How did we get here?”
Copyright © 2020 Politico Online
