By Danesius Marteh,
Miracles don’t happen these days at worship centers but at the Liberia Football Association (LFA).
And rightly so when LFA President Mustapha Ishola Raji is claiming to have miraculously worked with Fifa to prevent an April 9 ban on Liberia.
The LFA claimed that Fifa, in a communication on 22 March, warned that court interference in football governance constitutes “undue third-party influence,” which may lead to the immediate suspension of Liberia from international football.
The second letter on 2 April warned that Liberia will be banned on 9 April for undue third party interference.
But Raji told a news conference on 13 April that the ban wasn’t instituted because he worked with Fifa to prevent it.
Raji, however, confirmed that there are two cases still in court although he didn’t elaborate.
Presidential aspirant Cassell Anthony Kuoh filed an “in re petition” on the constitutionality of the LFA statutes at the Supreme Court and is questioning Raji’s Liberian citizenship at the Civil Law Court.
“We, as part of our responsibility, worked along with the Fifa team to ensure that while the case is in court we were working along with the Fifa team so that Liberia couldn’t lead into suspension or be banned by Fifa,” said Raji.
Raji also justified why the two letters came from Paris and not Zurich.
“To some who aren’t aware, Fifa has a lot of sub-offices around the world. Zurich [is the] main headquarters. Paris [is] another sub-office. We have another office in Morocco and several offices around the world serving all Fifa member associations.
“The member associations division isn’t only responsible for Fifa Forward Programs but the member associations division is fully responsible for all activities under member associations, including Liberia,” Raji defended.
An analysis
It was obvious that Raji would put up a defense against the publication on why Fifa didn’t ban Liberia on 9 April as was reported by LFA.
I don’t need an education from Raji on the workings of Fifa.
Following Gianni Infantino’s election as Fifa president and his subsequent launch of the Forward Programs in 2016, Fifa moved quickly to introduce regional development offices to provide instant help and support to members working on the same time zones.
The offices in Dakar, Senegal; Johannesburg, South Africa; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Auckland, New Zealand; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Delhi, India; Asunción, Paraguay; Panama City, Panama and Church Christ, Barbados variously opened in 2017 and early 2018.
Brazzaville, Congo was opened in 2020 while Kigali, Rwanda came in 2022.
In June 2021, Fifa opened a strategic base for football development activities in Paris, France to work in close coordination with the regional development offices and headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland.
And in July 2025, Infantino celebrated “a special day” when Fifa officially opened an African hub in Rabat, Morocco to develop ever closer ties with its 54 member and facilitate football’s growth on the continent.
So why didn’t the threat to ban Liberia come from Rabat?
Per history and tradition, such a communication threatening a ban would have come from Fifa secretary-general Mattias Grafström in Zurich and not from chief member associations officer Elkhan Mammadov in Paris.
That’s one of the functions reserved for the secretary-general under articles 36 and 37 of the Fifa statutes amended in May 2024 and signed by Infantino and Grafstrom.
It was then Fifa secretary-general Fatma Samoura, who regularly communicated with members, including Liberia and Ethiopia and during troubled periods.
It was Fatma’s predecessors (Markus Kattner [acting], Jérôme Valcke, Urs Linsi, Michel Zen-Ruffinen and Sepp Blatter just to name a few), who communicated such a message and not a junior officer in Paris, whose function is to oversee Fifa Forward Programs.
Fifa had had deputy secretary-generals with Zvonimir Boban and Marco Villiger appointed in May 2016, a post once held by Zen-Ruffinen and Grafström.
It was good that Raji didn’t say he phoned Infantino to prevent the ban because we would have fact checked his claims.
