Minister Dissolves S’ Leone FA

The Sierra Leone Football Association has been dissolved by the country’s Sports Minister Paul Kamara.

The move could have serious consequences for Sierra Leone, with football’s world football governing body FIFA likely to ban the country from international competitions if the minister fails to reverse his decision.

Earlier in the year FIFA intervened in a dispute between the sports minister and the SLFA over the running of the the country’s senior national team Leone Stars.

The SLFA had also been set to vote for a new president this week in an elective congress in Freetown following the resignation of the previous president, Nahim Khadi, who stepped down because of health issues.

But Kamara has also postponed that vote until further notice.

A statement from the Sports Ministry said the sports minister took the decisions due to the resignations of the SLFA president and second vice-president, Alie Kargbo, as well as issues pertaining to the inefficiency of the association’s administration.

While the statement did not give specific examples of the body’s ‘inefficiency’, Kamara is not happy with the SLFA appeals committee’s decision to allow ex-Sierra Leone Premier League board chairman Rodney Edmond Michael to contest the association’s presidential election.

Kamara has banned Michael from all sporting activities and has also publicly  been backing female candidate Isha Johansen for the SLFA top job.

He told a local radio sports programme: “Rodney Michael will not contest the SLFA elections, if so it’ll be over my dead body.

“We’ll not accept the decision of the appeals committee to allow Michael to contest the election and as sports minister and chairman of the National Sports Council, I’ll make sure that there will be no election this week.”

However, the SLFA’s acting-president Joseph Samba Kelfala has told Tidesports that the organisation will not abide by the minister’s decision.