As the sun set over Freetown, there was a surprise tempest in Sierra Leone’s football ranks. The corridors of the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) were no stranger to controversy, but this time, its leadership itself was in the spotlight.
Late on Thursday evening, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) announced a dramatic twist:
Thomas Daddy Brima, President of SLFA, and Acting General Secretary Mohamed Benson Bawoh and Finance Manager Ibrahim Bah were arrested at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID).
The crime? Corruption charges, an all-too-familiar specter over the football administration of the country.
This dramatic development came at a very critical time—days before the SLFA’s scheduled congress on Saturday, a convention that was about to map the future of Sierra Leonean football.
The timing could not have been more critical, raising eyebrows and fuelling gossip about the legitimacy of the charges.
Responding to the crisis, the Union of Premier League Clubs took a historic stand, suspending their participation in the Sierra Leone Premier League as a show of solidarity with the arrested officials.
A bold move, but would all clubs follow suit? That was not yet clear.
For long-time football patrons, this was a déjà vu. Brima’s forerunner, Isha Johansen, had walked this same road before, spending a night in CID custody in 2016 before being indicted a year later.
Her own case led to Sierra Leone being suspended by FIFA, a wound that took close to eight months to heal.
It was only after her full acquittal in 2019 that football began getting back into stability.
And now history was repeating itself. Was Sierra Leonean football once again in trouble on the international scene?
Would FIFA act, or would the SLFA manage to get through this crisis without intervention from outside?
As the country waited for Friday’s press conference, it held its breath to see if it was just another storm or the beginning of something much larger.
