By Nenneh Fofanah
Freetown, 15th December 2025– The controversial match-fixing saga in Sierra Leone football resurfaced last week when the High Court ordered the temporary closure of the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) headquarters on Friday, December 5, 2025.
The Secretariat, located on Battery Street, was reopened less than 24 hours later, in the early hours of Saturday, December 6. Ishmail Saidu Kanu, Media Head to SLFA President Babadi Kamara, confirmed the development in a post on X (formerly Twitter): “The Undersheriff of the High Courts of Sierra Leone has reopened the SLFA Secretariat after a brief closure. The office is now fully accessible.”
The closure was linked to a long-standing legal dispute over an unpaid $3 million defamation compensation owed to former national team players Ibrahim “Marcel” Koroma and Samuel Ballay, who were cleared of match-fixing allegations in 2020. This marks the second time the Secretariat has faced such action, following a similar shutdown in June 2024 under then-president Thomas Daddy Brima.
Koroma and Ballay were among several players banned in 2014 after Interpol investigated alleged match-fixing during Sierra Leone’s encounters with South Africa in 2008 and 2009. Both men were later exonerated and successfully sued the FA, arguing that the ban destroyed their careers.
Ballay told BBC Sport Africa in 2020: “My Azerbaijani Club, Raven terminated my contract, and teams were no longer interested in signing me. I took the decision to hang my boots at the end of 2018 because of the damage the match-fixing allegation had done to my career.”
Koroma echoed similar frustration: “The false accusations stopped me from achieving my dream. The allegations brought fear in me to play for my national team. Imagine I make a genuine mistake and the opponent scores, they would accuse me again of match-fixing.”
Their lawyer, Haji Hassan Kamara Esq., expressed dissatisfaction with the Secretariat’s reopening just hours after the court ruling. “This matter has passed through five different judges, and all legal procedures were met. The undersheriff reopening it on a Saturday is shocking and unbelievable, it’s like the judgment doesn’t even matter,” he said.
Kamara further explained how the FA’s joint statement with the Ministry of Sports damaged his clients’ reputations and opportunities. “The news spread like wildfire and affected their careers. A coach who recommended Koroma to a team was sacked, together with him, after three months of his contract,” he noted.
He concluded: “After six years of allegations, a final report completely exonerated my clients. We wrote to Isha Johansen to compensate them, but she never responded. We eventually obtained judgment against the FA, but they did nothing until we filed to garnish their account. Even then, there was no money. During Daddy Brima’s time, they tried to negotiate, offering $100,000, which we found insulting and rejected.”
One week on, the dispute remains unresolved, with the $3 million compensation still unpaid and the controversy continuing to cast a shadow over Sierra Leone football.
