By Mohamed Fajah Barrie
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has confirmed the arrest and detention of the President of the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA), Thomas Daddy Brima, together with Acting General Secretary, Mohamed Benson Bawoh and Finance Manager, Ibrahim Bah
The three football administrators will spend the night at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID).
Their detention is part of an ongoing investigation into corruption, and further details will be provided during a press conference by the ACC scheduled for Thursday, April 4, 2025, at their head office in Freetown.
This development is running just before the SLFA’s ordinary congress, which is set to take place on Saturday, April 5, 2025, in Freetown.
Meanwhile, the union of premier league clubs has issued a statement suspending their members’ participation in the ongoing Sierra Leone Premier League in solidarity with the detained officials. However, it remains unclear whether all clubs in the union have agreed to this decision.
Brima is not the first president of the SLFA to be detained by the ACC. His predecessor Isha Johansen spent a night in custody at the CID in September 2016. She was subsequently indicted a year later and was forced to step aside in 2018 in accordance with the ACC Act. This led to Sierra Leone’s suspension by FIFA, which viewed it as government interference in the association’s operations.
The suspension which lasted for almost eight months was only lifted after Johansen was acquitted on all counts of corruption by a high court in Freetown in May 2019.
