By Danesius Marteh,
Several stakeholders boycotted a meeting called by the Liberia Football Association (LFA) on 3 February.
Of the 43 clubs in the first, second and women’s divisions, only Borough FC, Discoveries FC, Gardnersville and LISCR FC of the first and Determine Girls and Small Town of the female divisions were in attendance.
Freeport FC secretary-general Moses Kollar arrived after the meeting ended.
The meeting was called to brief the stakeholders about the CAF impact programs, Fifa Forward 2.0, Senior Female President Emmett Glassco’s communication regarding a new Fifa Forward 4.0 program and LFA subvention program, decisions taken by the executive committee against the statutes on 19 December 2025.
LFA President Mustapha Raji presided over the meeting, which was attended by executive committee members Anthony Deinuka, lvan Brown and Kelvin Bayoh as the rest were absent.
There were only two questions asked by Borough FC President Sylvanus Morris and Gardnersville FC secretary-general Roland Mulbah at the meeting, which lasted for less than 25 minutes.
The meeting should have been held on 27 January 2028 but was postponed after four sheriffs from the Paynesville Magisterial Court attempted to arrest Raji on the orders of stipendiary magistrate William G. Saygah.
Saygah issued the arrest order for Raji for the alleged commission of the crimes of simple assault and disorderly conduct following a complaint by Jubilee Football Club President James Nimene on 26 January.
James, a private prosecutor, appeared before the court on 26 January, sworn upon oath and averred that on 24 January in the LFA conference room in the Swankamore community, Raji banged him on the chest after series of exchanges and forcibly pushed him from his back outside of the conference room and threatened to break his head without any color of right.
Raji was served with the writ, which was turned over to LFA legal manager Benedict Yarsiah with the hope of bringing the defendant to court on 26 January.
But Saygah felt disrespected when neither Raji nor Cllr. Yarsiah showed-up in court up to sign-off time, prompting the sheriffs to go to the LFA on Tuesday.
The sheriffs waited for about 30 minutes outside of the gate and were allowed in the compound but Raji couldn’t be located.
Some employees confided in our reporter that Raji was hold-up in the 2022 Toyota Fortuner, which the LFA purchased for him at US$42,287 (insurance took the cost to US$45,000 in November 2022) as the sheriffs made their way to Raji’s office and the driver used the back way to escape with Raji.
City solicitor Emmanuel Tarr (Atty.) declined to prosecute the case for a lack of sufficient evidence in keeping with chapter 8, section 1.8 of the Criminal Procedure Law of Liberia on 27 January.
What led to the melee?
James had gone to the LFA to follow-up on the transfers of Zah Krangar, Armah Moore, Ezekiel Koon, Otalis Sie, Jacob Sailee and Emmanuel Baidoo of FC Fassell and Christopher Jerbo of Sameria FC to Jubilee.
Their transfers had been pending, which raiseed concerns and suspicions, prompting James to go to the LFA to inquire.
Jubilee had understandably being in the bad books of the LFA since winning a landmark case bordering on the good governance, accountability and transparency at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Since an eight-count CAS arbitral award delivered by Atty. Herve Le Lay of France on 31 October 2025, which restored Jubilee to the first division for the 2025/2026 season, Jubilee played 14 games with 14 players during the first phase because the LFA created several bottlenecks in allowing Jubilee to duly registered players.
