Football is the most popular sport in Sierra Leone.[1] The governing body is the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA).[2] The SLFA was formed in 1960 and has been affiliated with FIFA beginning the same year.[3] There has been and continues to be trouble within the sport in Sierra Leone. In the past, however, the country has achieved a modicum of success in international competition.
National competition
The Sierra Leone National Premier League is the top football league in Sierra Leone, with 14 teams.[4] At the completion of each season, the two worst teams are relegated to the second tier, and their places taken by promoted teams.[4]East End Lions and Mighty Blackpool are the two biggest and most successful football clubs,[5] but Kallon F.C. is also improving, winning the Premier League in 2006.[6]
The Sierra Leone FA Cup is the national knockout competition.[7] It was established in 1967.[7]
Sierra Leonean teams, as well as those of other African countries, have to compete with European football, especially the English Premier League, for the hearts of fans.[8] The country is home to one of the largest Manchester City supporters club outside of the UK.[9] In 2009 and 2010, fans and supporters of Manchester City raised funds to send a second-hand bus to Sierra Leone to provide transport for away games.[10]
International competition
The Sierra Leone national football team is popularly known as the Leone Stars and represents the country in international football competitions.[1] Though the team has never qualified for the FIFA World Cup, they did participate in the 1994 and 1996 African Cup of Nations.[11] On 3 September 2016, the national team had a chance to qualify for the Africa Cup for the first time in 20 years if they could defeat Ivory Coast, but only managed a 1-1 draw in an away match.[12]
The 2010s proved to be a decade of turmoil for the sport in Sierra Leone. The outbreak of Ebola in western Africa resulted in the Confederation of African Football instituting a ban preventing Sierra Leone, as well as Liberia and Guinea, from playing home games within the country beginning in August 2014; only after Sierra Leone was declared Ebola-free was the ban lifted in December 2015.[16] (Liberia's ban ended in September 2015,[16] and Guinea's in January 2016.[17]) From 2013 to the middle of 2016, there were two FA Cups and one league season.[18]
In June 2014, allegations were made that two football officials and a national under-20 coach fixed two matches, in 2008 and 2009.[19]
There is also ongoing dissatisfaction harboured by fans and teams against the SLFA, headed by Isha Johansen.[18] On 9 December 2015, the National Sport Council decided to dissolve the SLFA's executive committee.[20] The SLFA, however, refused to accept the decision.[20] Attendance is low at SLFA-organised games, even one where entry was free.[18] Eleven of fourteen of the premier league teams formed a breakaway league that ended in early 2016; it also failed to attract large crowds.[18] Six premier league teams boycotted the 2016 FA Cup.[18]
On 7 September 2016, SLFA President Isha Johansen, Vice President Brima Kamara and Secretary General Christopher Kamara were jailed by the Anti-Corruption Commission for failing to provide reports regarding the SLFA's financial statements and the use of money.[21] The trio were released after posting bail.[22] FIFA defended the SLFA in a letter, stating, "FIFA has no reason to suspect there has been misuse of funds that FIFA has provided to the SLFA", having audited the SLFA's accounts earlier in the year.[23]
