ZURICH: Isha Johansen has been endorsed by world federation FIFA as president of the Sierra Leone Football Association writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

Two weeks ago Johansen, one of the few women to make it to the top job in a national association, was among three senior officials arrested and briefly detained by anti-corruption commission investigators.

The other two were SLFA vice-president Brima Kamara and secretary-general Christopher Kamara. Commission head Ady Macauley said he ordered the arrests because the SLFA “failed to answer to our repeated requests to report to us for an investigation into discrepancies in the financial statements.”

Apparently the investigations concerned FIFA development grants.

FIFA secretary-general Fatma Samoura has written to Johansen supporting her as SLFA president and stating that ‘head office’ has not had any reason, from its own auditing procedures, to question the use of development grants.

Samoura “urges the relevant authorities – in particular the Ministry of Sports and the Anti-Coprruption Commission – to allow the SLFA to conduct its affars and activities without unnecessary obstruction.”

FIFA’s secretary-general is organising a visit to Sierra Leone in the near future to assess the situation for herself.

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