By Mohamed Foday Conteh
The Court of Arbitration for Sports in Lausanne, Switzerland has on the 10th June 2021 refused the appeal made by both Sierra Leone and Benin Football Associations. The postponed AfCON crucial match between the national teams of Sierra Leone and Benin will now take place in Conakry, Guinea on Monday 14 June 2021.
Leone Stars and the Squirrels were supposed to play on the 30 March2021 in Freetown but the match was postponed after Sierra Leone reported that 5 Benin players had tested positive for Coronavirus by the host country’s body supervising activities related to the pandemic, hours before the kick off.
Benin players and match officials refused to step down their bus hours before kick-off, standing in solidarity with the players that tested positive, and returned home without jacking a ball . The authorities in Benin later released a statement red flagging the test results to be false. They went on to state that their players underwent COVID 19 test which turned out negative before coming to Freetown. The Squirrels went on to state that it was a shame to African football.
The players that reportedly tested positive included star player and former Huddersfield FC striker, Steve Mounie together with Captain Khalid Adenon, first choice goalkeeper Saturnin Allagbe and the French-based pair of Jodel Dossou and Cedric Hountondji.
The Sierra Leone FA (SLFA) filed an appeal to the Confederation of African Football (CAF) that Benin should forfeit the match since they refused to honour the fixture. However, the appeal was dismissed by CAF.
In what seemed to be retaliation, the Benin Football Federation also lodged a formal complaint to CAF. They also filed a complaint to CAS similarly to the one filed to CAF. CAS partially upheld their appeal to postpone the match for 14th June 2021 and the request for compensation by the SLFA was referred to CAF for examination. However, their requests that they get 3 points and 3 goals and for Sierra Leone to be excluded from the African Cup of Nations (AfCON), were rejected.
Leone Stars seeking to qualify for Africa’s showpiece football tournament in Cameroon in 2022,after their last appearance in 1996 –25 years ago.
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