By Isaac Massaquoi
Under the threat of a ban by the Federation of International Football Association, FIFA, the government of Sierra Leone has done a dramatic U-turn and ordered the reinstatement of Isha Johansen's SLFA executive.
In the short run at least, Johansen and her people would celebrate the power of FIFA to get what they want from all their member countries. When the details of what was agreed at Wednesday's meeting at State House appeared on social media, one commentator suggested that the path had been laid again for another round of conflict. So after a week of Sport Ministry grandstanding, Sierra Leone football is back in the corridors of hopelessness.
The immediate cause for the dismissal of Johansen's executive by the government was the sacking of the seven member committee set up with the blessing of the government of Sierra Leone, FIFA and the SLFA to verify SLFA delegates ahead of a crucial congress in April 2015. Many in the SLFA absolutely believe it is their responsibility to do that. Now that committee has itself been reinstated with an order that none of the members, including those recommended by the FA, should be sacked by Johansen. This is all good, to the extent that Johansen would return to her office to resume work and then shame her opponents.
The reality, however, is that as long as the SLFA is not sure of the support of those delegates who would emerge from the verification process, we should be ready for more brinkmanship, arguments, FIFA threats and perhaps State House meetings until Johansen completes her four year term.
Step forward please if you are even a casual follower of Sierra Leone Football and never dreamt that we would get to this stage - a day on which Ernest Bai Koroma's government finally withdrew support from Isha Johansen's SLFA and caused her to fall. It was very clear from the outset that Johansen was still in office even the day after she was controversially elected because of FIFA and the support she enjoyed from the government, exemplified by the actions of her chief cheerleader at the time, Paul Kamara, the Sports Minister.
Football is Sierra Leone's most favourite sport but the game is closing 2015, worse than at any other time in history. It's a grim catalogue, so let's close our eyes as we go through it. Sierra Leone has been eliminated from continental competitions and the World Cup, with Chad of all countries striking the final blow. Even at the time they kicked us out of the World Cup, we were in a better position to them on the FIFA ranking.
On the domestic front, the ravages of Ebola meant that there was no football but above all the struggle to establish who actually runs Sierra Leone football took a frightening twist with the National Sports Council dissolving Isha Johansen's executive after another round of schoolboy-like protests at the SLFA secretariat.
The Football Stakeholders who are opposed to Jahansen's leadership had made similar dissolution announcements twice before now. On each occasion, government intervened to restore the status-quo at Kingtom. Johansen has now lost the support of State House. She, who only yesterday had nine lives, is today hanging on by means of FIFA's life support equipment called Political Interference.
The trouble, however, is that FIFA is so discredited, weak and uncertain about its own future, that it is practically unable to continuously save an FA that delights in tearing itself apart.
A senior football administrator, with strong ties to the Johansen regime, told me that the dissolution of Johansen's executive was only a means of strengthening the hand of her opponents in case it became necessary to negotiate a way out of the paralysis at the SLFA. That may well be true but the odds are really stacked against Johansen right now. Here's what I mean: To have banned Sierra Leone would have meant nothing in football terms. The country has been eliminated from all serious competitions and many Sierra Leoneans who love the game are prepared to go through the pain as long as football administration improved when all of that was over. Only the SLFA would have lost FIFA money to cover their salaries and the cost of running their office.
I know that in her quiet moments, Johansen must have asked herself very serious questions about her involvement with football administration at this level in Sierra Leone. Before she emerged as a candidate in that election in August 2013, she ran a very successful youth team that had found its way into the Sierra Leone Premier League; she organised international football tournaments and landed many of her young players in football leagues mainly in Scandinavia.
In fact, the man who was virtually the SLFA president in waiting, Rodney Michael had received assurances of support from Johansen who, according to Michael actually agreed to play a major role in his administration. Johansen had cut out her own place in football administration with dignity. So how did it all come to this? Maybe she will deal with that issue in her memoirs. Did she really want to be president of the SLFA or was she simply encouraged to run for the office by those who were determined to stop Michael by all means possible?
As always, it was easy for Johansen to run to FIFA for protection. That was as predictable as FIFA's response. She is also very well connected with the main actors on FIFA's ethics committee for which she would get favourable hearing always. Besides that, she has played the victim card to the international media in particular - the idea that a woman intent on cleaning up the corrupt Sierra Leone Football was being hounded out of office in a male-dominated sport. That will play well abroad always.
At home, she has very few friends in the media. And maybe it's her way of doing things but she has made very little effort since coming to power to bring some sections of the local media on her side. Or to even ask for a chance to put her own case to a gullible public. Her opponents are having a field day.
Some of the people, who are opposed to Johansen today, were her main backers at the time she came to office through that flawed election, policed by the Inspector General of all people, and supervised by FIFA's main hit man in Africa - a fixer called Primo Covaro. So, again deep down, Isha knows that those people who voted for her on that day at the Police Canteen, were manufactured delegates, some of whom had since gone on radio to even denounce her and explain how it all happened.
If Johansen allows an SLFA congress to hold in the present circumstances in which more than two-thirds of the delegates are implacably opposed to her leadership and are ready to throw her out of Kingtom at every opportunity, she would have committed political suicide in broad day light. Her game is to buy as much time as she could and see out her troubled tenure in eighteen or so months from now. That's what this is about. The stakeholders thought they had her in a headlock for the Makeni congress. The deliberations didn't get past the roll call of delegates.
Frankly, many people can't understand why after two years in office, Johansen has not been able to mop up all the small areas of resistance to her leadership. There are people in football administration in this country who get their daily bread and social relevance from being part of the SLFA and whatever milk and honey that flow from their Kingtom headquarters. So now that they have been locked out of the place, they have no option but to fight back.
And because Johansen can't stop banning them from the game at the slightest opportunity, she must expect a struggle because the bans are direct attacks on their survival. Some of those who were jointly suspended by the SLFA and the Ministry of Sport more than a year ago, have neither had their cases reviewed nor cleared of any wrongdoing. Isn't that why many people fervently believe that Johansen is simply trying to eliminate those who are against her rule?
I feel very bad to say this, but the reality now is that this fight over the SLFA has gone on for too long and both sides are still in their trenches, springing ambushes and launching surprise attacks. The biggest losers are the long-suffering football fans of Sierra Leone.
(C) Politico 21/12/15
