Sierra Leone’s African Nations Cup qualifier against Ghana has been called off after the country’s FA failed to get a FIFA suspension lifted.
Sierra Leone authorities, who had petitioned FIFA to get the ban lifted, did not meet a Tuesday deadline to reinstate ousted football association president Isha Johansen, who is under investigation of corruption-related charges.
“Our appeal has been rejected,” Sierra Leone Football Association president Brima Mazzola Kamara, who replaced Johansen, told Reuters.
Sierra Leone has three points from their opening two Nations Cup qualifiers.
Confederation of African Football (CAF) has yet to comment on whether Ghana will be awarded a win for Thursday’s match or if Sierra Leone will be allowed to continue in the Nations Cup qualifying competition if and when they are reinstated by FIFA.
The Rule of Law is the Love of Rules. Corruption is the emergency of Sierra Leone and the urgency of now! Let the beautiful game play in our hearts while we fight Corruption. It's vain to sit and write to a graft-clouded FIFA if we cannot stand to live for ourselves for once.
— Francis Ben Kaifala (@FrancisKaifala) October 9, 2018
Breaking news: AFCON Qualifier matches Ghana vs Sierra Leone & Sierra Leone vs Ghana on the 11th and 14th of October respectively have been cancelled as SLFA did not meet the conditions stipulated in the letter sent by CAF on FIFA’s decision to suspend the federation.#AFCONQ2019
— CAF (@CAF_Online) October 9, 2018
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